OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 
Of  ILLINOIS 


104 

W93 

<  Z  - 


* 


A*, 

•V- 

K 


&  V* 


Return  this  book  on  or  before  the 
Latest  Date  stamped  below. 

•  .y  .  ’  '  .  • 

University  of  Illinois  Library 

'  *  i ;  y *  )  i( 

'Si 

6  - 

/  i3i  5 

JUL  2  2  ® 

9 

m  - 

QCf  p  r> 

OCJ  ~8  m 

1  4 /u 

Q 

u 

7 1 

'  o 

JUN  I  jgg 

! 

r  r.  r  , 

i  y  i 

r,  y  I 

^  i  ■-  7  m 

■  0 

FE8  22  196b 

■'  nun  9  4 

iqCO 

ore  20  (95 

rC  .1  0  1952 

\ 

\ 

JfcN  ’ 

4 

\ 

p  C  i> 
ILO  , 

2  U  136  7 

\ 

MAR  - 

*!>  116? 

\ 

MRR2 

01971 

L161 — H41 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/philosophicaldis00wrig_1 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT 


III  1 

WITH  A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  THE  AUTHOR 

\ 

13  Y 


CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1878 


( 


Copyright,  1876,  by 

HENRY  HOLT. 


Trow’s 

Printing  and  Rookbinding  Company, 
305-213  Hast  t 'zth  St., 

NEW  YORK. 


B.  Hermon  Smith.  Stereotyper, 

Ithaca,  N.  Y 


ten 

Wli 


i 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 

This  volume  contains  the  greater  part  of  the  published  writ¬ 
ings  of  its  author.  The  beginning  of  the  article  on  “  Lewes’s 
Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,”  and  the  fragment  on  “  Cause 
and  Effect  ”  are  now  published  for  the  first  time. 


111598 


CONTENTS. 


km;** 

Biographicai  Sketch  ot-  Chauncey  Wright .  v.i 

A  Physical  Theory  of  the  Universe .  i 

Natural  Theology  as  a  Positive  Science .  35 

Tiie  Philosophy  of  Herbert  Spencer . • . 43 

Limits  of  Natural  Selections .  97 

The  Genesis  of  Species  .  128 

Evolution  by  Natural  Selection .  168 

% 

Evolution  of  Self-Consciousness .  199 

The  Conflict  of  Studies .  267 

The  Uses  and  Origin  of  the  Arrangements  of  Leaves  in 

Plants .  296 

McCosk  on  Intuitions .  329 

Hansel’s  Reply  to  Mill .  350 

Lewes’s  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind . 360 

McCosh  on  Tyndall .  375 

Speculative  Dynamics .  385 

Books  Relating  to  the  Theory  of  Evolution .  394 

German  Darwinism .  39S 

A  Fragment  on  Cause  and  Effect . . . . .  406 

John  Stuart  Mill — A  Commemorative  Notice . 414 

Index . 429 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  CHAUNCEY 

WRIGHT. 

BY  CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON. 

Chauncey  Wright  died  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on 
the  1 2th  of  September,  1875,  aged  forty-five  years. 

His  name  was  not  widely  known.  He  had  written  compar¬ 
atively  little.  A  few  essays  by  him  on  scientific  subjects  had 
appeared  in  “The  Mathematical  Monthly,”  and  the  “  Memoirs” 
and  “  Proceedings  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sci¬ 
ences”;  he  had  contributed  several  articles,  mostly  upon  phil¬ 
osophical  topics,  to  the  “North  American  Review,”  and  he 
had  printed  numerous  briefer  papers  in  “The  Nation.”  His 
work  gave  evidence  not  only  of  a  mind  of  rare  power  and  un¬ 
usual  balance,  but  also  of  wide  acquisitions  and  thorough  in¬ 
tellectual  discipline,  and  he  had  won  recognition  from  compe¬ 
tent  judges  as  a  philosophical  thinker  of  a  high  order,  from 
whom  much  was  to  be  expected. 

To  collect  his  principal  writings,  and  to  present  them  in  a 
form  accessible  to  students  was  a  duty  to  his  memory,  and  in 
the  interest  of  philosophy.  Fragmentary,  as  of  necessity  such 
a  collection  must  be,  and  but  imperfectly  representative  of  the 
scope  of  the  author’s  mind,  the  general  character  of  his  philo¬ 
sophical  opinions  and  method  may  clearly  enough  be  learned 
from  it. 

It  seemed  desirable  to  prefix  to  this  selection  from  his  writ¬ 
ings  an  account  of  the  author,  not  merely  to  gratify  the  nat- 


via 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT. 


ural  desire  of  his  readers  to  know  something  of  the  man  to 
whom  they  might  owe  the  incitement  of  thought,  but  still  more 
because  the  character  of  Chauncey  Wright  was  no  less  remark¬ 
able  than  his  intelligence,  and  was  of  such  uncommon  and  ad¬ 
mirable  quality  that  upon  those  who  knew  him  intimately  his 
death  fell  as  a  great  misfortune,  and  has  left  a  void  in  their 
lives  that  can  never  be  filled. 

The  task  of  preparing  this  account  has  been  assigned  to  me 
as  one  who  knew  him  well,  especially  during  the  last  fifteen 
years  of  his  life,  and  who  had  enjoyed  the  happiness  of  his  close 
and  helpful  friendship.  The  external  events  of  his  life  were 
not  striking,  and  all  that  need  be  told  of  them  can  be  said  in 
a  few  words. 

Chauncey  Wright  was  born  in  Northampton,  in  the  year  1830. 
His  father  and  mother  were  of  old  New  England  stock,  with 
such  characters  and  habits  as  were  the  results  of  a  Ions:  sue- 
cession  of  generations  who  had  lived  simply  and  seriously, 
transmitting  from  one  to  another  the  traditions  of  labor,  fru¬ 
gality,  domestic  comfort,  and  intelligence.  His  father  w-as  an 
active  man  in  his  town,  carrying  on  a  successful  country  trade, 
and  occupied  with  the  various  duties  of  the  office  of  a  deputy- 
sheriff  of  the  county,  a  post  which  he  filled  for  many  years. 
Wright’s  boyhood  vras  fortunate  in  the  advantages  common  to 
New  England  country  boys  at  a  time  when  the  conditions 
which  have,  during  the  present  generation,  wrought  so  rapid 
and  great  a  change  in  American  society,  had  hardly  begun  to 
manifest  themselves.  The  circumstances  of  his  life  were  em¬ 
inently  wholesome.  He  was  an  affectionate,  reserved,  and 
thoughtful  boy,  fond  of  animals  and  plants,  observant  of  their 
habits,  and  in  general  more  interested  in  outdoor  than  indoor 
pursuits.  He  did  not  especially  distinguish  himself  at  school, 
except,  perhaps,  in  mathematics  and  in  the  writing  of  compo- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


IX 


sitions,  which  he  often  preferred  to  write  in  verse  rather  than 
in  prose.  No  strong  personal  influence  seems  to  have  affected 
the  natural  development  of  his  intelligence;  and,  though  neither 
solitary  nor  unsocial,  he  worked  out  much  by  himself  the 
problems  and  devices  of  his  youth,  and  early  displayed  the 
solid  independence  of  his  mind  and  character.  He  had  a  se¬ 
rious  disposition,  and  even  in  early  years  he,  at  times,  suffered 
from  a  tendency  toward  melancholy.  He  entered  Harvard 
College  in  1848.  His  classical  attainments  were  slight,  and  he 
took  little  interest  in  the  study  either  of  languages  or  of  litera¬ 
ture.  The  bent  of  his  mind  was  strong  toward  abstract  pur¬ 
suits,  and  he  applied  himself  chiefly  to  mathematics  and  phi¬ 
losophy,  displaying  the  acuteness  and  originality  of  his  intel¬ 
ligence  in  his  themes  and  other  written  exercises.  He  had  a 
certain  inertness  of  temperament  which  caused  the  action  of 
his  mind  to  appear  slow  and  difficult.  But  often  when  he 
seemed  least  active,  he  was  engaged  in  reflection,  and  the 
want  of  brilliancy  or  vivacity  of  power  was  more*  than  compen¬ 
sated  for  by  solidity  of  acquisition,  as  well  as  by  the  assimila¬ 
tion  of  his  knowledge  with  his  thought.  He  learned  slowly, 
but  he  knew  whatever  he  learned.  His  memory  was  retentive, 
and  well  disciplined,  so  that  its  stores  not  only  became  abun¬ 
dant,  but  were  also  held  in  good  order  for  service.  One  of 
the  most  marked  features  of  his  intellectual  nattire,  even  at 
this  comparatively  early  date,  was  the  steadiness  and  consistency 
of  its  growth.  There  was  nothing  desultory  in  the  pursuit  of 
his  aims;  and,  though  his  efforts  were  often  intermittent,  they 
were  not  dispersed. 

His  modesty  and  reserve  combined  with  the  nature  of  his 
interests  to  prevent  him  from  being  well  known  by  any  large 
circle  of  acquaintances;  but  the  disinterestedness  of  his  dispo¬ 
sition  and  the  amiability  of  his  temper  endeared  him  to  a  few 


X 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT. 


intimate  friends,  while  his  classmates  generally  felt  for  him  more 
than  ordinary  regard  and  respect. 

Soon  after  leaving  college,  in  1852,  he  was  appointed  one  of 
the  computers  for  the  recently  established  “  American  Ephem- 
eris  and  Nautical  Almanac.”  By  occasional  contributions 
to  the  “Mathematical  Monthly”  and  other  journals,  he  grad¬ 
ually  won  repute  as  a  mathematician  and  physicist  of  distin¬ 
guished  ability  and  accomplishment.  In  1863  he  was  made 
Recording  Secretary  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and 
Sciences,  a  place  which  he  held  for  seven  years,  and  which 
gave  opportunity  not  only  for  the  exercise  of  his  sound  judg¬ 
ment  in  practical  questions,  but  for  the  exhibition  of  critical 
discrimination  in  the  editing  of  the  Academy’s  “  Proceedings.” 

His  attention  gradually  became  more  and  more  fixed  upon 
the  questions  in  metaphysics  and  philosophy  presented  in  their 
latest  form  in  the  works  of  Mill,  Darwin,  Bain,  Spencer,  and 
others,  and  in  1864  he  published  in  the  “North  American 
Review,”  then  under  my  charge,  the  first  of  a  series  of  phil¬ 
osophical  essays,  of  which  the  last  appeared  only  two  months 
before  his  death,  and  of  which  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
they  form  the  most  important  contribution  made  in  America  to 
the  discussion  and  investigation  of  the  questions  which  now 
chiefly  engage  the  attention  of  the  students  of  philosophy. 

From  the*  time  of  his  leaving  college  to  his  death,  he  resided, 
with  brief  intervals  of  absence,  in  Cambridge.  In  1872,  he 
spent  a  few  months  in  Europe.  In  1870  he  delivered  a  course 
of  University  Lectures  in  Harvard  College  on  the  principles 
of  Psychology.  In  1874-75,  he  was  instructor  in  Harvard 
College  in  Mathematical  Physics. 

He  lived  all  his  life  simply,  frugally,  and  modestly.  He  had 
few  wants,  and  he  used  a  considerable  part  of  his  somewhat 
scanty  means  to  add  to  the  comfort  of  those  who  were  dear  to 


BIO  ORA  PHI  C  A  L  SHE  TOIL 


xi 


him.  He  had  what  may  be  truly  called  an  elevated  nature, 
not  remote  from  human  interests,  but  above  all  selfishness  or 
meanness.  The  motives  by  which  the  lives  of  common  men 
are  determined  had  little  influence  with  him.  He  did  not  feel 
the  spur  of  ambition,  or  the  sting  of  vanity.  No  thought  of 
personal  advantage,  no  jealousy  of  others,  affected  his  judg¬ 
ment  or  his  conduct.  His  principles  were  so  firmly  established 
that  his  moral  superiority  seemed  not  so  much  the  result  of 
effort  as  the  expression  of  what  was  natural  to  him.  His  sym¬ 
pathies  were  not  stimulated  by  his  mode  of  life,  but  they  were 
keen,  and  so  interpenetrated  by  his  intelligence  that  in  cases 
of  need  they  made  him  one  of  the  most  helpful  of  men. 
He  was,  for  instance,  admirable  as  a  nurse  by  the  sick-bed, 
alike  tender  and  firm;  and  while  the  touch  of  his  hand  and 
the  modulation  of  his  voice  afforded  the  invalid  unwonted 
comfort  and  repose,  the  steadiness  of  his  judgment  gave 
the  supporting  tone  so  often  wanting  in  the  sick-room.  The 
same  qualities  brought  him  frequently  into  happy  relations 
with  children  and  with  old  people.  If  his  imagination  once 
felt  the  appeal,  his  adaptation  of  his  strength  to  their  weak¬ 
ness,  of  his  multiplicity  of  resource  to  their  need  of  enter¬ 
tainment,  was  so  complete  as  to  win  for  him  the  love  of 
young  and  old.  He  was  fond  of  games  with  children,  and 
would  devote  himself  to  their  amusement  with  unwearied  pa¬ 
tience  and  spirit.  He  had  great  skill  in  sleight-of-hand,  and 
frequently  amused  himself  with  finding  out  and  reproducing 
the  tricks  of  the  most  renowned  jugglers.  He  would  hardly 
have  been  suspected  by  a  casual  acquaintance  to  be  a  master 
in  legerdemain;  for  his  massive  build  and  heavy  proportions, 
and  the  absence  of  agility  in  his  common  movements,  seemed 
to  unfit  him  for  performances  of  this  sort.  But,  after  seeing 
him  display  his  dexterity,  it  was  easily  recognized  as  the  out- 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT. 


xii 

growth  and  indication  of  faculties  already  exercised  in  higher 
fields.  The  same  fine  touch  and  precise  and  delicate  move¬ 
ment  which  were  shown  in  his  nursing,  the  same  quick  and  ex¬ 
act  vision  which  distinguished  his  observation  as  a  physicist 
were  exhibited  in  his  feats  of  parlor  magic.  He  brought 
his  keen  analytical  powers  to  bear  on  the  seemingly  mysterious 
processes  of  jugglers  or  of  spiritualists;  he  used  his  knowledge 
of  mechanics  in  the  construction  of  toys,  and  applied  his 
mathematical  genius  to  the  invention  and  performance  of  mar¬ 
velous  games  and  puzzles  of  cards. 

I  dwell  thus  at  length  on  what  might  seem  a  mere  trivial 
accomplishment,  not  only  because  it  affords  a  vivid  illustration 
of  marked  personal  traits,  but  more  because  it  was  the  means 
by  which  he  gave  concrete  and  visible  expression  to  certain 
mental  qualities  trained  to  rare  perfection  in  higher  fields  of 
exertion. 

His  temper  was  naturally  calm,  and  he  early  attained  a  de¬ 
gree  of  self-discipline  that  enabled  him  to  keep  it  under  com¬ 
plete  control.  He  was  fond  of  debate  and  argument,  and  the 
full  force  of  his  mind  was  brought  out  through  the  animation 
of  talk,  more  than  in  the  solitary  exercise  of  writing.  Yet  he 
was  seldom  ruffled  by  controversy,  and  never  made  ungenerous 
use  of  his  strength,  or  forced  his  opponent  to  pass  through  the 
Caudine  Forks  of  unwilling  concession  and  acknowledgment 
of  defeat.  This  control  of  his  own  temper  secured  that  of  his 
adversary.  To  argue  with  him  was  a  moral  no  less  than  an 
intellectual  discipline.  The  words  he  used  of  Mill  apply  with 
equal  fitness  to  himself.  “He  sincerely  welcomed  intelligent 
and  earnest  opposition  with  a  deference  due  to  truth  itself,  and 
to  a  just  regard  of  the  diversities  in  men’s  minds  from  differ¬ 
ences  of  education  and  natural  dispositions.  These  diversities 
even  appeared  to  him  essential  to  the  completeness  of  the  ex- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


xm 


animation  which  the  evidences  of  truth  demand.  Opinions 
positively  erroneous,  if  intelligent  and  honest,  are  not  without 
their  value,  since  the  progress  of  truth  is  a  succession  of  mis¬ 
takes  and  corrections.  Truth  itself,  unassailed  by  erroneous 
opinion,  would  soon  degenerate  into  narrowness  and  error. 
The  errors  incident  to  individuality  of  mind  and  character  are 
means,  in  the  attrition  of  discussion,  of  keeping  the  truth 
bright  and  untarnished,  and  even  of  bringing  its  purity  to 
light.” 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  Wright  himself  carried  on  the  dis¬ 
cussions  in  which  he  engaged.  He  early  learned  that  truth  is 
a  double  question;  and  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  which  was  the 
controlling  motive  of  his  life,  he  disciplined  himself  by  the 
study  of  opposing  opinions.  As  he  himself  said,  “  Men  are 
born  either  Platonists  or  Aristotelians;  but  by  their  education 
through  a  more  and  more  free  and  enlightened  discussion,  and 
by  progress  in  the  sciences,  they  are  restrained  more  and  more 
from  going  to  extremes  in  the  directions  of  their  native  biases.” 
And  this  general  remark  may  be  applied  with  fitness  to  him¬ 
self.  For  while  his  intellectual  operations  were  directed  by  a 
spirit  of  observation  and  experiment,  which,  though  training 
the  judgment  and  imagination  in  habits  of  accuracy,  might 
also  have  a  tendency  to  direct  the  attention  to  exclusive  views 
of  truth,  he  was  on  the  other  hand  in  all  matters  of  specula¬ 
tion,  to  use  a  phrase  of  Mr.  Mill’s,  essentially  a  seeker,  testing 
every  opinion,  and  recognizing  the  difficulties  which  adhere  to 

them  all.  He  exhibited  that  union  of  science  and  of  philoso- 

* 

phy  which  is  the  highest  distinction  of  the  leading  thinkers  of 
our  time,  and  which  hereafter  will  be  indispensable  for  all  who 
may  succeed  in  deepening  the  current  of  thought  or  in  open¬ 
ing  for  it  new  channels. 

It  was  a  marked  quality  of  his  genius  as  a  thinker,  that  its 


XIV 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT. 


springs  were  mainly  fed  from  other  sources  than  those  of 
books.  He  was  no  wide  reader;  but,  making  himself  mastet 
of  a  few  comprehensive  books,  he  gained  from  them,  by  re¬ 
flection  upon  them,  much  more  than  their  mere  contents.  He 
was  never  a  persistent  and  systematic  student;  but  he  was  es¬ 
sentially  a  persistent  and  systematic  thinker. 

During  his  college  life  he  had  been  a  judicious  reader  of 
Emerson  and  of  Lord  Bacon,  but  in  the  years  of  his  early 
manhood,  while  he  was  accumulating  large  stores  of  observa¬ 
tion  and  reflection,  two  or  three  books,  similar  fin  interest,  but 
widely  different  in  spirit  and  in  method,  were  of  special  interest 
and  importance  to  him, — chiefly  Sir  William  Hamilton’s  Dis¬ 
sertations  and  Lectures,  and  Mill’s  Political  Economy  and  his 
System  of  Logic.  The  repute  and  influence  of  Hamilton  as  a 
metaphysician  and  psychologist  have  undoubtedly  declined 
since  the  publication,  in  1865,  of  Mill’s  Examination  of  his 
Philosophy, — a  philosophy,  which  professed  to  combine  in  an 
original  form  the  German  and  French  developments  of  the 
earlier  Scotch  reaction  against  Locke  and  Hume,  with  the 
demonstrations  of  modern  science  in  respect  to  the  necessary 
limits  of  knowledge.  Hamilton  had,  however,  succeeded 
previously  not  only  in  re-awakening  among  English  students  a 
fresh  interest  in  metaphysics,  but  also  in  exercising  a  strong 
influence  upon  the  general  current  of  philosophical  opinion. 
It  was  his  great  service,  and  one  which  will  always  deserve 
recognition,  whatever  be  the  ultimate  verdict  upon  his  special 
doctrines,  that  he  produced  a  real  revival  of  interest  in  a  sub¬ 
ject  of  fundamental  importance  which  for  a  generation  at  least 
had  ceased  to  receive  due  attention,  and  that  he  forced  once 

more  upon  the  consciousness  of  his  generation  the  conviction 

* 

that  a  true  Psychology  is,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Mill,  “the  in¬ 
dispensable  scientific  basis  of  Morals,  of  Politics,  and  of  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


xv 


science  and  art  of  Education,”  and  that  upon  the  resolution 
of  the  difficulties  of  metaphysics,  using  the  word  in  its  proper 
sense,  depends  the  assurance  of  the  solid  foundation  of  all 
knowledge.  For  this  stimulus,  and  for  this  conviction,  Wright, 
like  many  others,  was  indebted  to  his  early  studies  of  Hamil¬ 
ton.  But  he  had  studied  Hamilton  too  thoroughly,  and  with 
too  much  clearness  of  mind,  not  to  have  become  aware,  even 
before  Mill’s  exposure  of  them,  of  some  at  least  of  the  weak 
points  and  inconclusive  determinations  of  his  system. 

But  Mill’s  work  was  much  more  than  a  simple  refutation  of 
the  errors  of  Hamilton.  In  accomplishing  this,  he  did  much 
to  re-establish,  and  upon  more  solid  foundations  than  before, 
certain  principles  in  philosophy  of  which  the  validity  had 
seemed  to  be  shaken.  He  showed  that  the  determination  of 
the  vexed  problems  of  metaphysics  was  to  be  sought  in  a 
properly  scientific,  and  not  in  an  a  priori ,  or  spiritualist  psy¬ 
chology.  His  work  went  far  to  determine  the  mutual  depend¬ 
ence  of  mental  philosophy  and.  of  experimental  science,  the 
general  recognition  of  which  has  already  become  effective  in 
determining  their  respective  courses  of  advance.  The  doctrine 
of  experience  may  not  yet  be  the  dominant  doctrine  of  the  En¬ 
glish  school  of  psychologists;  but  the  fact  is  obvious,  that  the 
recent  independent  investigations  of  science,  and  the  rapid  and 
unforeseen  developments  of  knowledge,  have  tended  to  confirm 
its  main  propositions,  and  to  strengthen  its  claim  to  accept¬ 
ance.  With  this  doctrine  in  psychology,  the  ill-named  but 
generally  well-understood  doctrine  of  utilitarianism.in  morals  is 
closely  associated,  so  closely  indeed  that  one  may  be  said  to  be 
in  great  measure  dependent  on  the  other.  Whatever  contributes 
to  the  support  of  either,  contributes  more  or  less  directly  to  the 
support  of  both.  It  may  not  be  correct  to  assert,  that  if  either 
be  overthrown  the  other  must  fall  with  it;  but  it  is  at  least 


XVI 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT. 


certain,  that  the  validity  of  a  great  part  of  each  depends  on 
evidence  common  to  both.  The  consistency  among  the  postu¬ 
lates  of  psychology,  and  morals,  has  never  been  so  clearly  mani¬ 
fest,  and  has  never  received  such  valuable  exposition,  as  during 
the  last  twenty  years,  mainly  through  the  efforts  of  English  in¬ 
vestigators  and  thinkers,  with  Mill  and  Darwin  at  their  head. 

The  effect  of  Mill’s  doctrine  upon  the  direction  of  Wright’s 
thought  was  confirmed  by  that  of  Darwin’s  work  on  The 
Origin  of  Species  by  means  of  Natural  Selection.  The  strong 
moral  element  in  the  works  of  both  writers  found  a  warm  re¬ 
sponse  in  his  own  nature.  The  entire  candor,  the  love  of 
truth,  the  disinterested  search  for  it,  the  patience  of  investiga¬ 
tion,  the  accuracy  of  statement,  the  modesty  of  assertion, 
characteristic  of  both  these  masters,  were  in  entire  harmony 
with  his  own  mental  traits.  The  conclusions  and  the  theories 
of  Mill  and  Darwin  may  be  disputed,  may  be  overthrown,  but 
their  respective  methods  of  investigation  and  of  statement  are 
of  such  excellence,  and  their  desire  for  truth  so  sincere  and  im¬ 
personal,  that  their  works  would  remain  as  models  of  scientific 
investigation  and  philosophic  inquiry  even  though  they  should 
lose  their  doctrinal  authority. 

The  questions  opened  and  partially  solved  by  these  authors 
were  those  which  chiefly  occupied  Wright  during  the  last  ten 
years  of  his  life.  The  rare  combination  in  him  of  a  genius  for 
reflection,  disciplined  by  long  exercise,  with  great  natural  powers 
of  observation,  and  with  unusually  wide  and  accurate  scientific 
attainments,  fitted  him  to  deal  with  them  not  merely  as  a  re¬ 
porter  of  other  men’s  thought,  but  as  an  original  investigator, 
capable  himself  of  making  additions  to  the  sum  of  knowledge. 
The  position  which  he  occupied  as  a  philosopher  is  the  stand¬ 
point  common  to  one  of  the  two  fundamental  divisions  of  the 
philosophic  world;  namely,  that  of  the  assumption  of  the  uni- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH . 


XVII 


versality  of  physical  causation.  It  cannot  be  stated  better  than 
in  his  own  words.  “  The  very  hope  of  experimental  philoso¬ 
phy,”  he  says,  “  its  expectation  of  constructing  the  sciences  into 
a  true  philosophy  of  nature,  is  based  on  the  induction,  or,  if 
you  please,  the  a  priori  presumption,  that  physical  causation 
is  universal ;  that  the  constitution  of  nature  is  written  in  its 
actual  manifestations,  and  needs  only  to  be  deciphered  by  ex¬ 
perimental  and  inductive  research ;  that  it  is  not  a  latent  in¬ 
visible  writing,  to  be  brought  out  by  the  magic  of  mental  an¬ 
ticipation  or  metaphysical  meditation.  Or,  as  Bacon  said,  it 
is  not  by  the  ‘anticipations  of  the  mind,’  but  by  the  ‘interpre¬ 
tation  of  nature,’  that  natural  philosophy  is  to  be  constituted; 
and  this  is  to  presume  that  the  order  of  nature  is  decipherable, 
or  that  causation  is  everywhere  either  manifest  or  hidden,  but 
never  absent.”  The  methods  of  this  interpretation  of  nature 
or,  in  other  words,  of  this  discovery  of  truth,  he  regarded  as 
those  of  all  true  knowledge ;  namely,  the  methods  of  induction 
from  the  facts  of  particular  observation.  This  was  his  position 
in  respect  to  the  much-debated  problem  of  metaphysical  caus¬ 
ation,  or  the  question  of  what  are  called  “real  connections  be¬ 
tween  phenomena  as  causes  and  effects,  which  are  independent 
of  our  experiences,  and  the  invariable  and  unconditional  se¬ 
quences  among  them.”  “  To  those,”  I  cite  his  own  words,  “  who 
have  reached  the  positive  mode  of  thought,  the  word  ‘cause’ 
simply  signifies  the  phenomena,  or  the  state  of  facts,  which  pre¬ 
cede  the  event  to  be  explained,  which  make  it  exist,  in  the  only 
sense  in  which  it  can  clearly  be  supposed  to  be  made  to  exist ; 
namely,  by  affording  the  conditions  of  the  rule  of  its  occur¬ 
rence.  But  with  those,”  he  adds,  “  who  have  not  yet  attained 
to  this  clear  and  simple  conception  of  cause,  a  vague  but  fa¬ 
miliar  feeling  prevails,  which  makes  this  conception  seem  very 
inadequate  to  express  their  idea  of  the  reality  of  causation. 


XV1U 


CHAUNCEY  WEIGHT. 


/ 


Such  thinkers  feel  that  they  know  something  more  in  causa¬ 
tion  than  the  mere  succession,  however  simple  and  invariable 
this  may  be.  The  real  efficiency  of  a  cause,  that  which  makes 
its  effect  to  exist  absolutely,  seems,  at  least  in  regard  to  their 
own  volitions,  to  be  known  to  them  immediately.”  “But,” 
he  goes  on,  after  an  interval,  “that  certain  mental  states  of 
which  we  are  conscious  are  followed  by  certain  external  ef¬ 
fects  which  we  observe  is  to  the  sceptical  schools  a  simple  fact 
of  observation.  These  thinkers  extend  the  method  of  the  more 
precisely  known  to  the  interpretation  of  what  is  less  precisely 
known,  interpreting  the  phenomena  of  self-consciousness  by 
the  methods  of  physical  science,  instead  of  interpreting  phys¬ 
ical  phenomena  by  the  crudities  of  the  least  perfect  though 
most  familiar  of  all  observations,  the  phenomena  of  volition.”* 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed,  from  the  phrase  in  the  preceding 
extract  concerning  those  “who  have  reached  the  positive 
mode  of  thought,”  that  Wright  classed  himself  with  any  spe¬ 
cific  school  of  so-called  Positivists.  He  used  the  term  positive ,  .  / 
as  it  is  now  commonly  employed,  as  a  general  appellation  to 
designate  the  whole  body  of  thinkers  who  in  the  investigation 
of  nature  hold  to  the  methods  of  induction  from  the  facts 
of  observation,  as  distinguished  from  the  a  priori  school,  who 
seek  in  the  constitution  of  the  mind  the  key  to  the  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  external  world.  It  xvas  only  in  this  sense  that 
he  himself  was  a  positivist.  So  too  with  regard  to  his  use  of 
the  word  “  sceptical.”  In  his  employment  of  it,  it  had  no  di¬ 
rect  theological  significance.  It  meant  with  him  the  temper 
of  mind  which  puts  no  confidence  in  assertion  unsupported  by 
the  evidence  of  experience;  it  meant  the  temper  of  question¬ 
ing  and  investigation  as  opposed  to  that  of  concluded  opinion; 

*  North  American  Review,  106,  p.  286,  notice  of  Peabody’s  Positive  Philosophy, 
January,  1868. 


BIO  GRA  PHI C A  L  SHE  TCH. 


xi  x 


the  temper  in  which  the  unknown  remains  matter  of  inquiry, 
not  of  dogmatism,  and  to  which  the  unknowable,  or  that  which 
lies  plainly  outside  the  range  of  human  faculties,  is  of  no  con¬ 
cern  save  as  matter  of  sentiment.  To  the  quality  of  this  sen¬ 
timent  he  gave  great  weight  as  a  test  of  the  worth  of  individ¬ 
ual  character.  His  scepticism  rested  upon  the  proposition, 
that  the  highest  generality,  or  universality,  in  the  elements,  or 
connections  of  elements,  in  phenomena,  is  the  utmost  reach 
both  in  the  power  and  the  desire  of  the  scientific  intellect. 
There  was  nothing  aggressive  in  such  scepticism  as  this,  except 
so  far  as  it  led  him  to  expose  the  fallacious  arguments  of  the 
supporters  of  the  orthodox  metaphysics.  The  sympathetic 
quality  of  his  nature  showed  itself  in  his  respect  for  individual 
beliefs  sincerely  held.  He  felt,  to  use  his  own  words,  ‘‘that 
the  subordinate,  almost  incidental  value  that  some  traditional 
metaphysical  issues,  like  the  ultimate  nature  of  the  connection 
of  mind  and  matter,  and  of  cause  and  effect,  and  the  depend¬ 
ence  of  life  on  matter,  have  in  the  view  of  the  scientific  psy¬ 
chologist,  is  with  difficulty  comprehended  by  those  wrho  ap¬ 
proach  the  subject  from  a  religious  point  of  view.”  He  had  no 
liking  for  the  iconoclasts  who  would  destroy  ancient  faiths  in 
the  hearts  of  those  who  are  incapable  of  substituting,  with  good 
effect  on  their  lives,  rational  convictions  in  the  place  of  senti¬ 
mental  beliefs.  He  had  confidence  in  the  constant  and  pro¬ 
gressive  extension  of  the  field  of  knowledge;  but  he  did  not 
believe  that  the  question  of  the  origin  and  destiny  of  things 
would  ever  be  included  within  its  limits.  If  asked  for  his  spec¬ 
ulations  on  these  topics,  that  so  greatly  exercise  the  curiosity 
of  the  race,  he  would  have  been  very  likely  to  reply  with  the 
words  of  Newton,  which  were  among  his  favorite  apothegms, 
“ Hypotheses  non  jingo” 

In  the  year  1870,  Mr.  Wright  published  the  first  of  a  series 


XX 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT. 


of  papers,  of  which  the  last  appeared  but  a  short  time  before 
his  death,  expository  of  the  true  nature  of  the  doctrine  of 
Natural  Selection,  of  its  various  applications,  and  of  its  rela¬ 
tions  to  common  metaphysical  speculations.  In  the  first  of 
these  articles,  which  had  the  form  of  a  review  of  Mr.  Wal¬ 
lace’s  contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Natural  Selection,  Mr. 
Wright  touches  upon  the  application  of  the  principles  involved 
in  the  doctrine  of  Natural  Selection  to  the  development  of  the 
mental  powers  of  man.  The  full  importance  of  the  topic  did 
not,  however,  appear  till  the  publication,  more  than  two  years  ^ 
afterward,  of  his  most  considerable  contribution  to  philosophy, 
his  essay  on  the  Evolution  of  Self-Consciousness,  in  which  a 
natural  explanation  is  given  of  the  chief  phenomena  of  human 
consciousness,  involving  the  refutation  of  many  of  the  main 
propositions  of  mystical  metaphysics  or  idealism.  In  1871,  he 
published  a  paper  on  the  Genesis  of  Species,  in  reply  to  Mr. 
St.  George  Mivart’s  attack  on  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection. 
The  vigor  and  effectiveness  of  his  defense  of  the  theory  led  to 
the  republication  of  this  essay  in  England,  at  Mr.  Darwin’s 
instance,  and  compelled  Mr.  Mivart  to  attempt  to  make 
good  his  position  in  a  communication  to  the  “  North  American 
Review,”  the  journal  in  which  Mr.  Wright’s  article  originally 
appeared.  To  this  reply  Mr.  Wright  rejoined  in  the  succeed¬ 
ing  number  of  the  “Review,”  July,  1872.* 

In  these  discussions  of  the  problems  of  modern  research, 
and  other  shorter  papers  on  similar  topics,  published  for  the 
most  part  in  “The  Nation,”  Mr.  Wright  showed  the  wide  reach 
of  his  thought,  his  powers  of  keen  analysis,  and  the  large  store 
of  his  acquirements.  His  training  in  the  sound  scientific 

method  of  investigation  gave  precision  to  his  statement  of  the 
- — _____ — . - • 

*  In  his  recently  published  work,  entitled  “  Lessons  from  Nature  as  manifested  in 
Mind  and  Matter,”  Mr.  Mivart  reprints  his  reply  to  Mr.  Wright’s  criticisms,  but  fails  ta 
notice  Mr.  Wright’s  rejoinder. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


XXJ 


inductions  of  philosophic  thought.  He  carried  the  scientific 
method  into  the  region  of  reflection.  In  respect  to  all  matters 
concerning  which  the  facts  necessary  for  the  formation  of  opin¬ 
ion  were  not  known,  or  had  been  but  insufficiently  observed, 
he  held  a  suspended  judgment.  He  never  seemed  to  have  a 
prepossession  in  favor  of  or  against  any  opinion,  concerning 
which  the  testimony  of  experience  was  doubtful,  and  the  evi¬ 
dence  of  fact  apparently  inconsistent. 

But  his  thought  was  by  no  means  limited  to  the  topics  which 
philosophy  derives  from  the  exact  or  the  natural  sciences.  The 
main  attraction  of  science  and  philosophy  to  him  was  not  on 
the  side  of  abstract  truth,  but  much  more  on  the  application  of 
truth  to  the  life  and  conduct  of  man.  The  questions  of  morality, 
of  politics,  of  jurisprudence,  of  education,  in  the  light  thrown  on 
them  by  psychology  and  by  experience,  were  those  which  in 
his  later  years  were  continually  assuming  an  increasing  share 
of  his  attention.  And  in  his  treatment  of  these  questions  he 
displayed  the  most  eminent  trait  of  his  genius,  and  the  highest 
result  of  the  discipline  of  his  philosophic  powers, — I  mean  a 
good  practical  judgment,  or  the  quality  of  wisdom.  Chauncey 
Wright  was  in  the  true  sense  a  wise  man.  I  do  not  assert, 
that,  in  the  ordering  of  his  own  life,  he  was  always  guided  by 
the  considerations  of  wisdom.  In  some  important  respects  his 
self-control  was  greatly  deficient  in  steadiness.  Few,  indeed,  of 
.the  wisest  men  have  succeeded  in  conforming  their  lives  in  all 
respects  to  their  principles.  Wisdom  more  frequently  manifests 
itself  in  objective  relations,  than  in  the  complete  mastery  of 
personal  dispositions,  and  a  consistently  judicious  regulation  of 
conduct.  And,  in  all  matters  in  which  the  interests  of  others 
were  involved,  Mr.  Wright’s  judgment  was  one  of  the  most 
trustworthy.  His  sympathetic  nature  gave  him  the  power  to 
enter  into  moods  of  character  and  conditions  of  feeling  widely 


XXII 


CHAUNCEY  WRIGHT. 


diverse  from  his  own,  while  his  judgment  in  each  particular  in¬ 
stance  was  the  result  of  inductions  of  large  experience  and 
careful  reflection.  Instant  as  the  expression  of  his  opinions 
might  be,  there  was  nothing  of  haste  in  their  formation.  Emo¬ 
tion,  sentiment,  opinion,  all  rested  with  him  on  a  rational  foun¬ 
dation.  I  should  give  a  false  image,  if,  in  thus  speaking,  I 
were  to  convey  the  impression  of  anything  dry  or  formally 
deliberate  in  his  intercourse  with  others.  He  was,  especially 
in  his  later  years,  always  ready  and  fluent  in  talk,  easily  ani¬ 
mated,  accessible  to  the  ideas  of  others,  neither  preoccupied 
with  his  own  reflections  to  the  exclusion  of  external  sugges¬ 
tions,  nor  using  the  predominant  weight  of  his  own  intelligence 
to  crush  the  slighter  fabric  of  the  thought  of  his  companions. 
He  had  the  modesty  of  the  philosopher  in  happy  combination 
with  his  just  self-confidence,  and  the  vigor  of  his  moral  senti¬ 
ment  was  as  evident  in  the  manner  as  in  the  substance  of  his 
discourse.  I  have  referred  to  his  tendency  in  early  life  to  mel¬ 
ancholy.  He  was  never  wholly  free  from  occasional  periods 
in  which  some  defect  of  physical  organization  or  constitution 
showed  itself  in  uncontrollable  mental  depression.  But  he 
was  for  the  most  part  cheerful,  and  often  gay.  He  was  an 
easy  and  equable  companion,  and  the  lighter  regions  of  life 
and  thought  were  as  open  and  accessible  to  him,  as  the  grave 
solitudes  in  which  he  habitually  dwelt. 

Those  who  knew  him  best  will  most  clearly  discern  the  fact 
that  his  published  writings,  able  as  they  are,  and  deserving  of 
the  respect  due  to  high  qualities  of  thought,  fall  short  of  being 
a  satisfactory  expression,  even  of  the  purely  intellectual  part  of 
his  nature.  The  action  of  his  mind  in  composition  was  labo¬ 
rious,  and  his  style  was  often  too  compact  of  thought,  and  not 
sufficiently  relieved  by  the  lighter  graces  of  expression.  His 
writings  and  his  oral  lectures  sometimes  required  closer  atten- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 


xxiii 


tion  on  the  part  of  readers  or  hearers  than  it  would  have  been 
well  to  demand  of  them.  His  thought,  indeed,  was  never 
obscure ;  but  it  was  too  condensed,  and  at  times  too  profound 
to  be  readily  followed.  His  own  ability  misled  him,  and  he 
did  not  always  estimate  aright  the  average  incapacity  of  un¬ 
trained  intelligence  to  follow  a  process  of  exact  reasoning.  But 
nothing  of  this  defect  was  to  be  found  in  his  conversation, which 
was  constantly  lighted  up  by  the  pleasant  play  of  a  suggestive 
humor,  that  often  added  a  happy  and  unexpected  stroke  where¬ 
with  to  clinch  the  point  of  argument.  In  talk,  the  readiness  of 
his  intelligence  was  not  less  remarkable  than  its  force ;  and  the 
abundance  and  variety  of  his  resources  not  less  surprising  than 
their  accuracy.  Whatever  he  knew  was  at  his  command,  and 
his  knowledge  extended  over  many  fields  with  which  he  might 
not  have  been  supposed  to  be  familiar.  One  could  hardly  turn 
to  him  with  a  question  on  any  topic,  however  remote  from  his 
ordinary  studies,  without  receiving  from  him  an  answer  that 
seemed  as  if  he  already  had  devoted  special  attention  to  the 
subject  now  for  the  first  time  presented.  The  method  of  his 
thought  was  so  excellent  that  new  topics  fell  naturally  into 
their  right  positions,  and  received  immediate  illustration  from 
previous  acquisitions,  made  originally  without  reference  to  any 
such  application.  With  such  capacities  as  his,  and  with  such 
training  as  he  had  given  them,  the  growth  of  his  mind  was  con¬ 
stant.  There  was  no  period  to  his  progress,  and  what  he  had 
done  seemed  but  the  beginning  and  assurance  of  the  greater 
things  of  which  he  was  capable.  His  sudden  death  in  the  full¬ 
ness  of  power  was  a  loss  to  be  mourned  by  all  who  have  at 
heart  the  interests  of  philosophy ;  that  is,  by  all  to  whom  the 
highest  interests  of  man  are  of  concern. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE* 

In  1811  Sir  William  Herschel  communicated  to  the  Royal 
Society  a  paper  in  which  he  gave  an  exposition  of  his  famous 
hypothesis  of  the  transformation  of  nebulae  into  stars.  “  As¬ 
suming  a  self-luminous  substance  of  a  highly  attenuated  nature 
to  be  distributed  through  the  celestial  regions,  he  endeavored 
to  show  that,  by  the  mutual  attraction  of  its  constituent  parts, 
it  would  have  a  tendency  to  form  itself  into  distinct  aggrega¬ 
tions  of  nebulous  matter,  which  in  each  case  would  gradually 
condense  from  the  continued  action  of  the  attractive  forces, 
until  the  resulting  mass  finally  acquired  the  consistency  of  a 
solid  body,  and  became  a  star.  In  those  instances  wherein  the 
collection  of  nebulous  matter  was  very  extensive,  subordinate 
centres  of  attraction  could  not  fail  to  be  established,  around 
which  the  adjacent  particles  would  arrange  themselves;  and 
thus  the  whole  mass  would  in  process  of  time  be  transformed 
into  a  determinate  number  of  discrete  bodies,  which  would 

ultimatelv  assume  the  condition  of  a  cluster  of  stars.  Her- 
* 

schel  pointed  out  various  circumstances  which  appeared  to  him 
to  afford  just  grounds  for  believing  that  such  a  nebulous  sub¬ 
stance  existed  independently  in  space.  He  maintained  that 
the  phenomena  of  nebulous  stars,  and  the  changes  observable 
in  the  great  nebula  of  Orion,  could  not  be  satisfactorily  ac¬ 
counted  for  by  any  other  hypothesis.  Admitting,  then,  the 
existence  of  a  nebulous  substance,  he  concluded,  from  indica¬ 
tions  of  milky  nebulosity  which  he  encountered  in  the  course 
of  his  observations,  that  it  was  distributed  in  great  abundance 
throughout  the  celestial  regions.  The  vast  collections  of  neb- 


*  From  the  North  American  Review,  July,  186a. 


2 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


ulae  which  he  had  observed,  of  every  variety  of  structure  and 
m  every  stage  of  condensation,  were  employed  by  him  with 
admirable  address  in  illustrating  the  modus  operandi  of  his 
hypothesis.  ”  * 

Laplace,  in  his  Syste?ne  du  Monde ,  applied  this  hypothesis, 
by  an  ingenious  but  simple  use  of  mechanical  principles,  to 
the  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  planetary  bodies,  and  of 
the  general  features  of  their  movements  in  the  solar  system. 
Supposing  the  original  nebulous  mass  to  receive  a  rotatory 
motion  by  its  aggregation,  he  showed  that  this  motion  would 
be  quickened  by  a  further  contraction  of  the  mass,  until  the 
centrifugal  force  of  its  equatorial  regions,  would  be  sufficient  to 
balance  their  gravitation,  and  to  suspend  them  in  the  form  of 
a  vaporous  ring.  Again,  supposing  this  revolving  ring  to  be 
broken,  and  finally  collected  by  a  further  aggregation  into  a 
spherical  nebulous  mass,  he  showed,  in  the  same  way,  how  the 
body  of  a  planet,  with  its  system  of  satellites,  might  be  formed. 
The  material  and  the  original  motions  of  the  planets  and  their 
satellites  could  thus,  he  supposed,  be  successively  produced, 
as  the  nebula  gradually  contracted  to  the  dimensions  of  the 
sun. 

No  scientific  theory  has  received  a  fairer  treatment  than  the 
nebular  hypothesis.  Arising  as  it  did  as  a  speculative  conclu¬ 
sion  from  one  of  the  grandest  inductions  in  the  whole  range 
of  physical  inquiry, — connecting  as  it  does  so  many  facts, 
though  vaguely  and  inconclusively,  into  one  system, — it  pos¬ 
sesses,  what  is  rare  in  so  bold  and  heterodox  a  view,  a  veri¬ 
similitude  quite  disproportionate  to  the  real  evidence  which 
can  be  adduced  in  its  support.  The  difficulties  which  ordina¬ 
rily  attend  the  reception  of  new  ideas,  were  in  this  case  removed 
beforehand.  The  hypothesis  violated  no  habitual  association 
of  ideas,  at  least  among  those  who  were  at  all  competent  to 
comprehend  its  import.  Though  resting  on  a  much  feebler 
support  of  direct  evidence  than  the  astronomical  theories  of 
Copernicus,  Galileo,  and  Kepler,  it  met  with  a  cordial  recep¬ 
tion  from  its  apparent  accordance  with  certain  preconceptions, 
of  the  same  kind  as  those,  which,  though  extrinsic  and  irrele- 


*  Grant’s  History  of  Physical  Astronomy. 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


3 


vant  to  scientific  inquiry,  were  able  to  oppose  themselves  suc¬ 
cessfully  for  a  long  time  to  the  ascertained  truths  of  modern 
astronomy. 

The  test  of  conceivableness,  the  receptivity  of  the  imagina¬ 
tion,  is  a  condition,  if  not  of  truth  itself,  at  least  of  belief  in  the 
truth;  and  in  this  respect  the  nebular  hypothesis  was  well 
founded.  It  belonged  to  that  class  of  theories  of  which  it  is 
sometimes  said,  “that,  if  they  are  not  true,  they  deserve  to  be 
true.”  A  place  was  already  prepared  for  it  in  the  imaginations 
and  the  speculative  interests  of  the  scientific  world. 

We  propose  to  review  briefly  some  of  the  conditions  which 
have  given  so  great  a  plausibility  to  this  hypothesis.  In  the 
first  place,  on  purely  speculative  grounds,  this  hypothesis,  as 
a  cosmological  theory,  happily  combines  the  excellences  of 
the  two  principal  doctrines  on  the  origin  of  the  world  that 
were  held  by  the  ancients,  and  which  modern  theorists  have 
discussed  as  views  which,  though  neither  can  be  established 
scientifically,  have  no  less  interest  from  a  theological  point  of 
view — namely,  first,  the  materialistic  doctrine,  that  the  world, 
though  finite  in  the  duration  of  its  orderly  successions  and 
changes,  is  infinite  in  the  duration  of  its  material  substance; 
and,  secondly,  the  spiritualistic  doctrine,  that  matter  and  form 
are  equally  the  effects,  finite  in  duration,  of  a  spiritual  and 
eternal  cause. 

At  first  sight  the  nebular  hypothesis  seems  to  agree  most 
nearly  with  the  materialistic  cosmology,  as  taught  by  the 
greater  number  of  the  ancient  philosophers;  but  the  resem¬ 
blance  is  only  superficial,  and,  though  the  hypothesis  possesses 
those  qualities  by  which  the  ancient  doctrine  was  suited  to  the 
limitations  and  requirements  of  the  poetical  imagination,  yet 
it  does  not  involve  that  element  of  fortuitous  causation  which 
gave  to  the  ancient  doctrine  its  atheistic  character.  In  the 
nebular  hypothesis  the  act  of  creation,  though  reduced  to  its 
simplest  form,  is  still  essentially  the  same  as  that  which  a  spir¬ 
itualistic  cosmology  requires.  The  first  created  matter  filling 
the  universe  is  devoid  only  of  outward  and  developed  forms, 
but  contains  created  within  it  the  forces  which  shall  determine 
every  change  and  circumstance  of  its  subsequent  history. 


4 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


The  hypothesis  being  thus  at  once  simple  and  theistic  appeals 
to  imagination  and  feeling  as  one  which  at  least  ought  to  be 
true. 

Such  considerations  as  these  doubtless  determined  the  fate 
of  another  ancient  cosmological  doctrine,  which,  though 
adopted  by  Aristotle,  was  regarded  with  little  favor  by  an¬ 
cient  philosophers  generally.  For  there  could  be  but  little 
support,  either  from  poetry  or  religion,  to  the  doctrine  which 
denied  creation,  and  held  that  the  order  of  nature  is  not,  in  its 
cosmical  relations,  a  progression  toward  an  end,  or  a  develop¬ 
ment,  but  is  rather  an  endless  succession  of  changes,  simple 
and  constant  in  their  elements,  though  infinite  in  their  combi¬ 
nations,  which  constitute  an  order  without  beginning  and  with¬ 
out  termination. 

While  this  latter  doctrine  was  not  necessarily  materialistic, 
like  that  which  has  been  so  termed,  and  which  was  more  gen¬ 
erally  received  among  the  ancients,  and  though  it  has  the 
greater  scientific  simplicity,  yet  it  fails  on  a  point  of  prime  im¬ 
portance,  so  far  as  its  general  acceptance  is  concerned,  in  that 
it  ignores  the  main  interest  which  commonly  attaches  to  the 
problem.  Cosmological  speculations  are,  indeed,  properly  con¬ 
cerned  with  the  mode  or  order  of  the  creation,  and  not  with 
the  fact  of  the  creation  itself.  But  that  the  first  cosmogonies 
were  written  in  verse  shows  the  almost  dramatic  interest  which 
their  themes  inspired.  “In  the  beginning”  has  never  ceased 
to  charm  the  imagination;  and  these  are  almost  the  only 
words  in  our  own  sacred  cosmogony  to  which  the  modern 
geologist  has  not  been  compelled  to  give  some  ingenious  inter¬ 
pretation.  That  there  was  a  beginning  of  the  order  of  natural 
events  and  successions  may  be  said  to  be  the  almost  universal 
faith  of  Christendom. 

The  nebular  hypothesis,  conforming  to  this  preconception 
and  to  the  greatest  poetic  simplicity,  passed  the  ordeal  of  un¬ 
scientific  criticism  with  remarkable  success.  Not  less  was  its 
success  under  a  general  scientific  review.  A  large  number  of 
facts  and  relations,  otherwise  unaccounted  for,  become  expli¬ 
cable  as  at  least  very  probable  consequences  of  its  assumptions ; 
and  these  assumptions  were  not,  at  first,  without  that  indepen- 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


5 


dent  probability  which  a  true  scientific  theory  requires.  The 
existence  of  the  so-called  nebulous  matter  was  rendered  very 
probable  by  the  earlier  revelations  of  the  telescope ;  and,  though 
subsequent  researches  in  stellar  astronomy  have  rather  dimin¬ 
ished  than  increased  the  antecedent  probability  of  the  theory,  by 
successively  resolving  the  nebulae  into  clusters  of  star-like  con¬ 
stituents, — suggesting  that  all  nebulosity  may  arise  from  defi¬ 
ciency  in  the  optical  powers  of  the  astronomer  rather  than  in¬ 
here  in  the  constitution  of  the  nebulae  themselves, — and  thereby 
invalidating  the  scientific  completeness  of  the  theory,  yet  the 
plausible  explanations  which  it  still  affords  of  the  constitution 
of  the  solar  system  have  saved  it  from  condemnation  with  a 
considerable  number  of  ingenious  thinkers.  With  astrono¬ 
mers  generally,  however,  it  has  gradually  fallen  in  esteem.  It 
retains  too  much  of  its  original  character  of  a  happy  guess, 
and  has  received  too  little  confirmation  of  a  precise  and  definite 
kind,  to  entitle  it  to  rank  highly  as  a  physical  theory. 

But  there  are  two  principal  grounds  on  which  it  will  doubt¬ 
less  retain  its  claim  to  credibility,  till  its  place  is  supplied,  if 
this  ever  happens,  by  some  more  satisfactory  account  of  cos- 
mical  phenomena.  To  one  of  these  grounds  we  have  just 
alluded.  The  details  of  the  constitution  of  the  solar  system 
present,  as  we  have  said,  many  features  which  suggest  a  phys¬ 
ical  origin,  directing  inquiry  as  to  how  they  were  produced, 
rather  than  as  to  why  they  exist, — an  inquiry  into  physical, 
rather  than  final  causes ;  features  of  the  same  mixed  character 
of  regularity  and  apparent  accident  which  are  seen  in  the 
details  of  geological  or  biological  phenomena;  features  not 
sufficiently  regular  to  indicate  a  simple  primary  law,  either 
physical  or  teleological,  nor  yet  sufficiently  irregular  to  show 
an  absence  of  law  and  relation  in  their  production. 

The  approximation  of  the  orbits  of  the  planets  to  a  common 
plane,  the  common  direction  of  their  motions  around  the  sun, 
the  approximation  of  the  planes  and  the  directions  of  their 
rotations  to  the  planes  of  their  orbits  and  the  directions  of 
their  revolutions,  the  approximatively  regular  distribution  of 
their  distances  from  the  sun,  the  relations  of  their  satellites  to 
the  general  features  of  the  primary  system, — these  are  some 


6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  the  facts  requiring  explanations  of  the  kind  which  a  geolo¬ 
gist  or  a  naturalist  would  give  of  the  distribution  of  minerals, 
or  stratifications  in  the  crust  of  the  earth,  or  of  the  distribution 
of  plants  and  animals  upon  its  surface, — phenomena  indicating 
complex  antecedent  conditions,  in  which  the  evidence  of  law  is 
more  or  less  distinct.  The  absence  of  that  perfection  in  the  solar 
system,  of  that  unblemished  completeness,' which  the  ancient 
astronomy  assumed  and  taught,  and  the  presence,  at  the  same 
time,  of  an  apparently  imperfect  regularity,  compel  us  to  re¬ 
gard  the  constitution  of  the  solar  system  as  a  secondary  and 
derived  product  of  complicated  operations,  instead  of  an 
archetypal  and  pure  creation. 

Such  is  one  of  the  grounds  on. which  the  nebular  hypothesis 
rests.  The  other  is  of  a  more  general  character.  The  ante¬ 
cedent  probability  which  the  theory  lacks,  from  its  inability  to 
prove  by  independent  evidence  the  fundamental  assumption 
of  a  nebulous  matter,  is  partially  supplied  by  a  still  more  gen¬ 
eral  hypothesis,  to  which  this  theory  may  be  regarded  as  in 
some  sort  a  corollary.  We  refer  to  the  “development  hypoth¬ 
esis,”  or  “theory  of  evolution,” — a  generalization  from  cer¬ 
tain  biological  phenomena,  which  has  latterly  attracted  great 
attention  from  speculative  naturalists.  This  hypothesis  has 
been  less  fortunate  in  its  history  than  that  of  the  astronomical 
one.  Inveterate  prejudices,  insoluble  associations  of  ideas,  a 
want  of  preparation  in  the  habits  of  the  imagination,  were 
the  unscientific  obstacles  to  a  general  and  ready  acceptance 
of  this  hypothesis  at  its  first  promulgation.  Though  in  one 
of  its  applications  it  is  identical  with  the  nebular  hypothesis, 
yet,  in  more  direct  application  to  the  phenomena  of  the  gen¬ 
eral  life  on  the  earth’s  surface,  it  appears  so  improbable,  that 
it  has  hitherto  failed  to  gain  the  favor  which  the  nebular  hy¬ 
pothesis  enjoys.  Nevertheless,  as  a  general  conception,  and 
independently  of  its  specific  use  in  scientific  theories,  it  has 
much  to  recommend  it  to  the  speculative  mind.  It  is,  as  it 
were,  an  abstract  statement  of  the  order  which  the  intellect 
expects  to  find  in  the  phenomena  of  nature.  “Evolution,” 
or  the  progress  “  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous, 
and  from  the  simple  to  the  complex,”  is  the  order  of  the  prog- 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


7 


ress  of  knowledge  itself,  and  is,  therefore,  naturally  enough, 
sought  for  as  the  order  in  time  of  all  natural  phenomena.  The 
specific  natural  phenomena  in  which  the  law  of  “evolution” 
is  determined  by  observation  as  a  real  and  established  law,  are 
the  phenomena  of  the  growth  of  the  individual  organism,  ani¬ 
mal  or  plant.  As  a  law  of  psychological  phenomena,  and  even 
of  certain  elements  of  social  and  historical  phenomena,  it  is 
also  well  established.  Its  extension  to  the  phenomena  of  the 
life  of  the  races  of  organized  beings,  and  to  the  successions  of 
life  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  is  still  a  speculative  conclusion, 
with  about  the  same  degree  of  scientific  probability  that  the 
nebular  hypothesis  possesses.  And  lastly,  in  the  form  of  the 
nebular  hypothesis  itself,  it  is  extended  so  as  to  include  the 
whole  series  of  the  phenomena  of  the  universe,  and  is  thus  in 
generality,  if  accepted  as  a  law  of  nature,  superior  to  any 
other  generalization  in  the  history  of  philosophy. 

As  included  in  this  grander  generalization,  the  nebular  hy¬ 
pothesis  receives  a  very  important  accession  of  probability, 
provided  that  this  generalization  can  be  regarded  as  otherwise 
well  founded.  As  a  part  of  the  induction  by  which  this  gen¬ 
eralization  must  be  established,  if  it  be  capable  of  proof,  the 
nebular  hypothesis  acquires  a  new  and  important  interest. 

We  are  far  from  being  convinced,  however,  that  further  in¬ 
quiry  will  succeed  in  establishing  so  interesting  a  conclusion. 
We  strongly  suspect  that  the  law  of  “evolution”  will  fail  to 
appear  in  phenomena  not  connected,  either  directly  or  re¬ 
motely,  with  the  life  of  the  individual  organism,  of  the  growth 
of  which  this  law  is  an  abstract  description.  And,  heterodox 
though  the  opinion  be,  we  are  inclined  to  accept  as  the  sound¬ 
est  and  most  catholic  assumption,  on  grounds  of  scientific 
method,  the  too  little  regarded  doctrine  of  Aristotle,  which 
banishes  cosmology  from  the  realm  of  scientific  inquiry,  re¬ 
ducing  natural  phenomena  in  their  cosmical  relations  to  an 
infinite  variety  of  manifestations  (without  a  discoverable  tend¬ 
ency  on  the  whole)  of  causes  and  laws  which  are  simple  and 
constant  in  their  ultimate  elements.* 


*  The  laws  or  archetypes  of  nature  are  properly  the  laws  of  invariable  or  unconditional 
sequence  in  natural  operations.  And  it  is  only  with  the  objective  relations  of  these  laws, 


8 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


In  rejecting  the  essential  doctrine  of  “the  theory  of  evolu¬ 
tion”  or  “the  development  hypothesis,”  we  must  reserve  an 
important  conclusion  implied  in  the  doctrine,  which  we  think 
is  its  strongest  point.  There  are  several  large  classes  of  facts, 
apparently  ultimate  and  unaccountable,  which  still  bear  the 
marks  of  being  the  consequences  of  the  operations  of  so-called 
secondary  causes, — in  other  words,  have  the  same  general 
character  as  phenomena  which  are  known  to  be  the  results 
of  mixed  and  conflicting  causes,  or  exhibit  at  the  same  time 
evidence  of  law  and  appearance  of  accident.  That  such  facts 
should  be  regarded  as  evidence  of  natural  operations  still  un¬ 
known,  and  perhaps  unsuspected,  is,  we  think,  a  legitimate 
conclusion,  and  one  which  is  presupposed  in  “the  theory  of 
evolution,”  and  in  the  nebular  hypothesis,  but  does  not  ne¬ 
cessitate  the  characteristic  assumptions  of  these  speculations. 
An  extension  of  the  sphere  of  secondary  causes,  even  to  the 
explanation  of  all  the  forms  of  the  universe  as  it  now  exists,  or 
of  all  the  forms  which  we  may  conceive  ever  to  have  existed, 
is  a  very  different  thing  from  adopting  the  cosmological  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  “development  theory.”  Naturalists  who  have 
recently  become  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  extending  nat¬ 
ural  explanations  to  facts  in  biology  hitherto  regarded  as  ulti¬ 
mate  and  inexplicable,  but  who  are  unwilling  to  adopt  the 
cosmological  view  implied  in  the  “development  theory,”  have 
adopted  a  new  name  to  designate  their  views.  “The  deriva¬ 
tive  theory,”  or  “derivative  hypothesis,”  implies  only  con¬ 
tinuity,  not  growth  or  progress,  in  the  succession  of  races  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth.  Progress  may  have  been  made,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  and  the  evidence  of  it  may  be  very  conclusive 
in  the  geological  record ;  but  the  fact  may  still  be  of  secondary 
importance  in  the  cosmological  relations  of  the  phenomena, 
and  the  theory  ought  not,  therefore,  to  give  the  fact  too  prom¬ 
inent  a  place  in  its  nomenclature. 

as  constituting  the  order  of  nature,  that  natural  science  is  concerned.  Their  subjective 
relations,  origin,  and  essential  being  belong  to  the  province  of  transcendental  meta¬ 
physics,  and  to  a  philosophy  of  faith.  According  to  this  division,  there  can  never  arise 
any  conflict  between  science  and  faith;  for  what  the  one  is  competent  to  dec'are,  the 
other  is  incompetent  to  dispute.  Science  should  be  free  to  determine  what  the  order  of 
nature  is,  and  faith  equally  free  to  declare  the  essential  nature  of  causation  or  creation. 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


9 


That  the  constitution  of  the  solar  system  is  not  archetypal, 
as  the  ancients  supposed,  but  the  same  corrupt  mixture  of  law 
and  apparent  accident  that  the  phenomena  of  the  earth’s  sur¬ 
face  exhibit,  is  evidence  enough  that  this  system  is  a  natural 
product;*  and  the  nebular  hypothesis,  so  far  as  it  is  concerned 
with  the  explanation  simply  of  the  production  of  this  system, 
and  independently  of  its  cosmological  import,  may  be  regarded 
as  a  legitimate  theory,  even  on  the  ground  we  have  assumed, 
though  on  this  ground  the  most  probable  hypothesis  would 
assimilate  the  causes  which  produced  the  solar  system  more 
nearly  to  the  character  of  ordinary  natural  operations  than 
the  nebular  hypothesis  does.  With  a  view  to  such  assimilation, 
and  in  opposition  to  “the  theory  of  evolution”  as  a  general¬ 
ization  from  the  phenomena  of  growth,  we  will  now  propose 
another  generalization,  which  we  cannot  but  regard  as  better 
founded  in  the  laws  of  nature.  We  may  call  it  the  principle 
of  counter-movements , — a  principle  in  accordance  with  which 
there  is  no  action  in  nature  to  which  there  is  not  some  counter¬ 
action,  and  no  production  in  nature  from  which  in  infinite  ages 
there  can  result  an  infinite  product.  In  biological  phenomena 
this  principle  is  familiarly  illustrated  by  the  counter-play  of  the 
forces  of  life  and  death,  of  nutrition  and  waste,  of  growth  and 
degeneration,  and  of  similar  opposite  effects.  In  geology  the 
movements  of  the  materials  of  the  earth’s  crust  through  the 
counteractions  of  the  forces  by  which  the  strata  are  elevated 

*  This  argument  for  physical  causes  is  apparently  the  reverse  of  that  which  Laplace 
derived  from  the  regularities  of  the  solar  system  and  the  theory  of  probabilities ;  but  in 
reality  the  objects  of  the  two  arguments  are  distinct.  For  the  legitimate  conclusion 
from  Laplace’s  computation  is,  not  that  the  solar  system  is  simply  a  physical  product, 
but  that  the  causes  of  its  production  could  not  have  been  irregular.  The  result  of  this 
computation  was  a  probability  of  two  hundred  thousand  billions  to  one  that  the  regular¬ 
ities  of  the  solar  system  are  not  the  effects  of  chance  or  irregular  causes. 

The  gist  of  this  argument  is  to  prove  simplicity  in  the  antecedents  of  the  solar  sys¬ 
tem;  and,  had  the  proportion  been  still  greater,  or  infinity  to  one,  the  argument  might 
have  proved  a  primitive  or  archetypal  character  in  the  movements  of  this  system.  It  is 
therefore  in  the  limitations,  and  not  in  the  magnitude,  of  this  proportion,  that  there  is 
any  tendency  to  show  physical  antecedence.  Hence  it  is  not  from  the  regularities  of 
the  solar  system,  but  from  its  complexity,  that  its  physical  origin  is  justly  inferred. 

Regarding  the  law  of  catisation  as  universal,  since,  if  not  implied  in  the  very  search 
for  causes,  it  is  at  least  the  broadest  and  the  best  established  induction  from  natural 
phenomena,  we  conclude  that  the  appearance  of  accident  among  the  manifestations  of 
law  is  proof  of  the  existence  of  complex  antecedent  conditions  and  of  physical  causa¬ 
tion,  and  that  the  absence  of  this  appearance  is  proof  of  simple  and  primitive  law. 


10 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


and  denuded,  depressed  and  deposited,  ground  to  mud  or 
hardened  to  rock,  are  all  of  the  compensative  sort ;  and  the 
movements  of  the  gaseous  and  liquid  oceans  which  surround 
the  earth  manifest  still  more  markedly  the  principle  of  counter¬ 
movements  in  the  familiar  phenomena  of  the  weather. 

Of  what  we  may  call  cosmical  weather,  in  the  interstellar 
spaces,  little  is  known.  Of  the  general  cosmical  effects  of  the 
opposing  actions  of  heat  and  gravitation,  the  great  dispersive 
and  concentrative  principles  of  the  universe,  we  can  at  present 
only  form  vague  conjectures ;  but  that  these  two  principles  are 
the  agents  of  vast  counter-movements  in  the  formation  and 
destruction  of  systems  of  worlds,  always  operative  in  never- 
ending  cycles  and  in  infinite  time,  seems  to  us  to  be  by  far 
the  most  rational  supposition  which  we  can  form  concerning 
the  matter.  And  indeed,  in  one  form  or  another,  the  agencies 
of  heat  and  gravitation  must  furnish  the  explanations  of  the 
circumstances  and  the  peculiarities  of  solar  and  sidereal  sys¬ 
tems.  These  are  the  agents  which  the  nebular  hypothesis 
supposes;  but  by  this  hypothesis  they  are  supposed  to  act 
under  conditions  opposed  to  that  general  analogy  of  natural 
operations  expressed  by  the  law  of  counter-movements.  Their 
relative  actions  are  regarded  as  directed,  under  certain  condi¬ 
tions,  toward  a  certain  definite  result ;  and  this  being  attained, 
their  formative  agency  is  supposed  to  cease,  the  system  to  be 
finished,  and  the  creation,  though  a  continuous  process,  to  be 
a  limited  one. 

It  should  be  noticed,  however,  in  favor  of  the  nebular 
hypothesis,  that  its  assumptions  are  made,  not  arbitrarily,  in 
opposition  to  the  general  analogy  of  natural  operations,  but 
because  they  furnish  at  once  and  very  simply  certain  mechan¬ 
ical  conditions  from  .which  systems  analogous  to  the  solar 
system  may  be  shown  to  be  derivable.  The  dispersive  agency 
of  heat  is  supposed  to  furnish  the  primordial  conditions,  upon 
which,  as  the  heat  is  gradually  lost  from  the  clouds  of  nebulous 
matter,  the  agency  of  gravitation  produces  the  condensations, 
the  motions,  and  the  disruptions  of  the  masses  which  subse¬ 
quently  become  suns  and  planets  and  satellites.  And  -  if  the 
mechanical  conditions  assumed  in  this  hypothesis  could  be 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNI  VERSE. 


1 1 


shown  to  be  the  only  ones  by  which  similar  effects  could  be 
produced,  the  hypothesis  would,  without  doubt,  acquire  a 
degree  of  probability  amounting  almost  to  certainty,  even  in 
spite  of  the  absence  of  independent  proof  that  matter  has 
ever  existed  in  the  nebulous  form. 

But  the  mechanical  conditions  of  the  problem  have  never 
been  determined  in  this  exhaustive  manner,  nor  are  the  con¬ 
ditions  assumed  in  the  nebular  hypothesis  able  to  determine 
any  other  than  the  general  circumstances  of  the  solar  system, 
such  as  it  is  supposed  to  have  in  common  with  similar  systems 
among  the  stars.  A  more  detailed  deduction  would  probably 
require  as  many  separate,  arbitrary,  and  additional  hypotheses 
as  there  are  special  circumstances  to  be  accounted  for.  Until, 
therefore,  it  can  be  shown  that  the  nebular  hypothesis  is  the 
only  one  wfliich  can  account  mechanically  for  the  agency  of 
heat  and  gravitation  in  the  formation  of  special  systems  of 
worlds,  like  the  solar  system,  its  special  cosmological  and  me¬ 
chanical  features  ought  to  be  regarded  with  suspicions,  as 
opposed  to  the  general  analogy  of  natural  operations. 

We  propose  to  criticise  this  hypothesis  more  in  detail,  and 
to  indicate  briefly  the  direction  in  which  we  believe  a  better 
solution  of  the  problem  of  the  construction  of  the  solar  system 
will  be  found.  But  before  proceeding,  we  must  notice  an  able 
Essay,  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  the  first  in  his  Second  Series 
of  “Essays:  Scientific,  Political,  and  Speculative.” 

In  this  essay  on  the  “Nebular  Hypothesis,”  and  in  the  fol¬ 
lowing  one  on  “Illogical  Geology,”  Mr.  Spencer  has  attempted 
the  beginning  of  that  inductive  proof  of  the  general  theory  of 
“evolution”  to  which  we  have  referred.  Undoubtedly  the 
clearest  and  the  ablest  of  the  champions  and  expounders  of  this 
theory,  he  brings  to  its  illustration  and  defense  an  extraordi¬ 
nary  sagacity,  and  an  aptitude  for  dealing  with  scientific  facts 
at  second  hand,  and  in  their  broad  general  relations,  such  as 
few  discoverers  and  adepts  in  natural  science  have  ever  exhib¬ 
ited.  For  dealing  with  facts  which  are  matters  of  common 
observation,  his  powers  are  those  of  true  genius.  In  the  essays 
following  those  with  which  we  are  immediately  interested,  and 
particularly  in  the  essay  on  “The  Physiology  of  Laughter,” 


12 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


and  in  the  review  of  Mr.  Bain’s  work  on  “  The  Emotions  and 
the  Will,”  he  displays  the  true  scope  of  his  genius.  In  psy¬ 
chology,  and  in  the  physiology  of  familiar  facts,  we  regard  his 
contributions  to  philosophy  as  of  real  and  lasting  value.  He  is 
deficient,  however,  in  that  technical  knowledge  which  is  neces 
sary  to  a  correct  apprehension  of  the  obscure  facts  of  science ; 
and  his  generalizations  upon  them  do  not  impress  us  as  so 
well  founded  as  they  are  ingenious. 

In  his  resume  of  the  facts  favorable  to  the  nebular  hypoth¬ 
esis,  he  has  committed  sundry  errors  of  minor  importance, 
which  do  not  in  themselves  materially  affect  the  credibility 
of  the  hypothesis,  but  illustrate  the  extremely  loose  and  un¬ 
certain  character  of  the  general  arguments  in  its  support.  A 
singular  use  is  made  of  a  table,  compiled  by  Arago,  of  the 
inclinations  of  the  planes  of  the  orbits  of  the  comets.  The 
legitimate  inference  from  this  table  is,  that  there  is  a  well- 
marked  accumulation  of  the  planes  of  these  orbits  at  small 
inclinations  to  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic.  In  considering  the 
directions  of  the  poles  of  these  planes,  we  ought  to  find  them 
equally  distributed  to  all  parts  of  the  heavens,  in  case  the 
orbits  of  the  comets  bear  no  relation  to  those  of  the  planets 
or  to  each  other.  Instead  of  this,  we  find  a  marked  concen¬ 
tration  of  these  poles  about  the  pole  of  the  ecliptic,  showing 
that  their  planes  tend  decidedly  to  coincide  with  the  ecliptic. 
But  Mr.  Spencer  has  drawn  from  this  table  a  conclusion 
directly  the  reverse  of  this.  Assuming,  as  we  cannot  but 
believe  on  insufficient  evidence,  that  the  directions  of  the 
major  axes  of  the  orbits  of  those  comets  whose  planes  are 
greatly  inclined  to  the  ecliptic  have  nearly  as  great  an  inclina¬ 
tion  as  they  can  have,  or  that  they  are  nearly  as  much  inclined 
to  the  ecliptic  as  the  planes  of  the  orbits  themselves,  he  regards 
the  table  of  the  inclinations  of  the  planes  of  the  orbits  as  indi¬ 
cating,  at  least  for  such  comets,  the  directions  of  their  axes. 
and  draws  thence  the  conclusion,  that  there  is  a  well-marked 
concentration  about  the  pole  of  the  directions  of  the  axes  of 
the  cometary  orbits,  and  hence,  that  the  regions  in  which  the 
aphelia  of  comets  are  most  numerous  are  above  and  below  the 
sun,  in  directions  nearly  perpendicular  to  the  ecliptic.  This 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UHL  VERSE. 


13 


conclusion,  though  the  reverse  of  that  which  is  legitimately 
drawn  from  Arago’s  table,  is  not  inconsistent  with  it;  and  if 
Mr.  Spencer  were  correct  in  his  assumption  concerning  the 
directions  of  the  axes  of  highly  inclined  orbits,  the  table  would 
show  that  there  are  really  two  well-distinguished  systems  of 
comets,  the  one  belonging  to  the  general  planetary  system, 
and  the  other,  Mr.  Spencer’s,  forming  a  system  by  itself, — an 
axial  one,  at  right  angles  with  the  general  system. 

But  either  conclusion  serves  the  purpose  of  the  discussion 
equally  well.  For  what  Mr.  Spencer  wished  to  show  was,  that 
the  relations  of  the  comets  to  the  solar  system  are  not  utterly 
fortuitous  and  irregular,  but  such  as  indicate  a  systematic  con¬ 
nection;  and  this  is  undoubtedly  true,  since  the  connection  of 
the  planetary  and  cometary  orbits  is  even  more  direct  and  inti¬ 
mate  than  Mr.  Spencer  has  suspected.  The  inference  which 
Arago’s  table  warrants  is,  then,  another  in  that  interesting 
series  of  facts  which  some  physical  theory,  whether  nebular 
or  not,  by  “evolution”  or  by  involution,  may  some  day  ex¬ 
plain. 

The  greater  number  of  the  arguments,  old  and  new,  which 
Mr.  Spencer  adduces  in  support  of  his  thesis,  do  not  apply 
specifically  to  the  nebular  hypothesis  in  particular,  but  are 
simply  an  enumeration  of  the  facts  which  go  to  show  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  physical  connections,  of  an  unknown  origin  and 
species,  in  the  solar  system.  In  his  handling  of  the  me¬ 
chanical  problems  of  the  nebular  genesis,  Mr.  Spencer  has 
succeeded  no  better  than  his  predecessors.  In  attempting  to 
account  for  the  exceptions  to  a  general  law  which  the  rota¬ 
tions  of  the  outer  planets,  Uranus  and  Neptune,  and  the  revo¬ 
lutions  of  their  satellites,  exhibit, — the  great  inclinations  of 
the  planes  of  these  rotations  and  revolutions  to  the  planes 
of  the  orbits  of  the  primaries, — Mr.  Spencer  makes  what 
appears  to  us  a  very  erroneous  assumption,  and  one  from 
which  the  conclusion  he  wishes  to  draw  by  no  means  inevi¬ 
tably  follows. 

It  is  one  of  the  few  successes  of  the  nebular  hypothesis,  that 
it  accounts  in  a  general  way  for  the  fact  that  the  planes  and 
directions  of  the  rotations  of  the  planets,  and  the  revolutions 


14 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  their  satellites,  nearly  coincide  with  the  planes  and  direc¬ 
tions  of  their  own  orbital  motions.  A  ring  of  nebulous  matter, 
detached  by  its  centrifugal  force  from  the  revolving  mass  of 
the  nebula,  contains  within  it  the  conditions  by  which  the 
direction,  and  even  the  amount,  of  the  rotation  of  the  result¬ 
ing  planet  is  determined;  and  this  direction  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  revolution  of  the  ring.  The  ring  must  originally 
be  of  a  very  thin,  quoit-shaped  form,  even  if  it  be  composed 
of  separate,  independently  moving  parts ;  otherwise  the  planes 

* 

of  the  orbits  of  the  several  parts  would  not  pass  through  or 
near  to  the  centre  of  attraction  in  the  central  nebula,  and  the 
parts  must  either  pass  through  each  other  from  one  to  the 
other  surface  of  the  ring,  which  would  tend,  along  with  other 
forces,  to  flatten  it  to  the  requisite  thinness.  Hence,  a  hoop¬ 
shaped  fluid  ring,  or  one  thinner  in  the  directions  of  its  radii 
than  in  a  direction  perpendicular  to  its  general  plane,  could 
not  exist.  Much  less  could  such  a  ring  be  detached  by  its 
self-sustaining  centrifugal  force  from  the  body  of  the  nebula. 
The  nebula  must  necessarily  be  flattened  in  its  equatorial 
regions  to  a  sharp,  thin  edge  by  the  centrifugal  force  of  its 
revolution,  before  those  regions'  could  be  separated  to  form  a 
ring.  The  supposition,  therefore,  which  Mr.  Spencer’s  inge¬ 
nuity  has  devised  to  account  for  the  anomalies  presented  in 
the  rotations  and  the  secondary  systems  of  Uranus  and  Nep¬ 
tune, — a  hoop-shaped  ring,  with  a  less  determinate  tendency 
to  rotation  in  forming  a  planet, — is  untenable.  But  this  is 
not  all.  Supposing  such  a  form  possible,  and  even  if  the  parts 
of  the  ring  did  not  move  among  themselves,  or  press  upon 
one  another  so  as  to  flatten  the  ring,  yet  the  direction  of  its 
tendency  to  rotation  in  contracting  to  a  planet  is  just  as  deter¬ 
minate  as  in  the  quoit-shaped  ring. 

We  have  gone  thus  into  detail,  to  show  the  vague  and 
uncertain  character  of  the  mechanical  arguments  of  the  neb¬ 
ular  hypothesis  when  they  deal  with  details  in  the  constitution 
of  the  solar  system.  In  his  treatment  of  recent  discoveries 
and  views  in  stellar  astronomy,  we  think  Mr.  Spencer  more 
fortunate.  We  agree  with  him  in  believing  the  current  opin¬ 
ion  to  be  an  error,  which  represents  the  nebulae  as  isolated 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


*5 


sidereal  systems,  inconceivably  remote,  and  with  magnitudes 
commensurate  with  the  Galactic  system  itself.  There  are  many 
reasons  for  believing  that  the  nebuloe  belong  to  this  system, 
and  that  they  are,  in  general,  at  no  greater  distance  from  us 
than  the  stars  themselves.  We  think,  also,  with  him,  that  the 
actual  magnitudes  of  the  stars  are  probably  of  all  degrees, 
and  that  their  apparent  magnitudes  do  not  generally  indicate 
their  relative  distances  from  us.  We  would  even  go  further, 
and  maintain,  as  both  a  priori  most  probable,  and  most  in 
accordance  with  observation,  that  the  free  bodies  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  range  in  size  from  a  grain  of  dust  to  masses  many  times 
larger  than  the  sun,  and  that  the  number  of  bodies  of  any 
magnitude  is  likely  to  bear  some  simple  proportion  to  the 
smallness  of  this  magnitude  itself.  Star-dust  is  not  at  all 
distasteful  to  us,  except  in  the  form  of  nebular  boluses.  For 
reasons  which  will  appear  hereafter,  the  smaller  bodies  are 
not  likely  to  be  self-luminous;  and  star-dust  is  probably  the 
cause  of  more  obscuration  than  light  in  the  stellar  universe. 
That  gaseous  and  liquid  masses  also  exist  with  all  degrees  of 
rarefaction  or  density,  dependent  on  the  actions  of  heat  and 
gravitation,  is  also,  we  think,  very  probable;  and  the  three 
states  of  aggregation  in  matter  doubtless  play  important  parts 
in  the  cosmical  economy. 

Before  leaving  Mr.  Spencer,  to  attend  more  immediately  to 
the  merits  of  the  nebular  hypothesis,  we  wish  to  adopt  from 
him  an  estimate  of  the  value  of  certain  ideas  in  geology,  the 
bearing  of  which  on  our  subject  is  not  so  remote  as  it  may  at 
first  sight  appear  to  be. 

Geology  has  not  yet  so  far  detached  itself  from  cosmological 
speculations  as  to  be  entitled  to  the  rank  of  a  strictly  positive 
science.  The  influence  of  such  speculations  upon  its  termi¬ 
nology,  and  upon  the  forms  of  the  questions  and  the  directions 
of  the  researches  of  its  cultivators,  is  still  very  noticeable,  and 
shows  how  difficult  it  is  to  start  anew  in  the  prosecution  of 
physical  inquiries,  or  completely  to  discard  unfounded  opin¬ 
ions  which  have  for  a  long  time  prevailed.  Greater  sagacity 
is  sometimes  required  to  frame  wise  questions,  than  to  find 
their  answers.  Geologists  still  continue  to  collate  remote  strati- 


i6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


fications  as  to  their  stratigraphical  order,  mineral  composition, 
and  fossil  remains,  as  if  these  were  still  expected  to  disclose  a 
comparatively  simple  history — simple  at  least  in  its  outlines 
— of  the  changes  which  the  life  of  our  globe  has  undergone. 
A  story,  dramatically  complete  from  prologue  to  epilogue,  was 
demanded  in  the  cosmological  childhood  of  the  science,  and 
its  manhood  still  searches  in  the  fragmentary  and  mutilated 
records  for  the  history  of  the  creation.  But  doubtless  the  story 
is  as  deficient  in  the  dramatic  unities,  as  the  record  itself  is 
in  continuity  or  completeness.  Referring  to  Mr.  Spencer’s 
admirable  essay  on  “Illogical  Geology”  for  our  reasons,  we 
will  simply  state  our  belief  that  nothing  in  the  form  of  a 
complete  or  connected  history  will  ever  be  deciphered  from 
the  geological  record. 

“  Only  the  last  chapter  of  the  earth’s  history  has  come  down  to  us. 
The  many  previous  chapters,  stretching  back  to  a  time  immeasurably 
remote,  have  been  burnt,  and  with  them  all  the  records  of  life  we  may 
presume  they  contained.  The  greater  part  of  the  evidence  which  might 
have  served  to  settle  the  development  controversy  is  forever  lost ;  and  on 
neither  side  can  the  arguments  derived  from  geology  be  conclusive.” 

We  must  not  ascribe  to  Mr.  Spencer,  however,  our  opinion, 
that,  even  if  this  record  were  more  complete,  we  should  not 
necessarily  be  the  wiser  for  it.  According  to  Mr.  Spencer’s 
views,  the  first  strata,  had  they  been  preserved,  would  have 
contained  the  remains  of  protozoa  and  protophytes ;  but,  for 
aught  we  dare  guess,  they  might  have  contained  the  footprints 
of  archangels. 

Evidence  of  progress  in  life  through  any  ever  so  consider¬ 
able  portion  of  the  earth’s  stratified  materials  would  not,  in 
our  opinion,  warrant  us  in  drawing  universal  cosmical  con¬ 
clusions  therefrom.  Alternations  of  progress  and  regress  rela¬ 
tively  to  any  standard  of  ends  or  excellence  which  we  might 
apply,  is  to  us  the  most  probable  hypothesis  that  the  general 
analogy  of  natural  operations  warrants.  Nevertheless,  as  we 
have  already  intimated,  we  accept  the  purely  physical  portion 
of  the  “  development  hypothesis,”  both  in  its  astronomical  and 
biological  applications,  but  would  much  prefer  to  designate  the 
doctrine  in  both  its  applications  by  the  name  we  have  already 
quoted.  This  name,  “the  derivative  hypothesis,”  simply  con- 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


*7 


notes  the  fact  that,  in  several  classes  of  phenomena  hitherto 
regarded  as  ultimate  and  inexplicable,  physical  explanations 
are  probable  and  legitimate.  But  it  makes  no  claim  to  rank 
with  the  names  of  the  Muses  as  a  revealer  of  the  cosmical  order 
and  the  beginning  of  things. 

We  are  aware  that  in  thus  summarily  rejecting  the  cosmo¬ 
logical  import  of  the  nebular  hypothesis,  along  with  its  special 
physical  assumptions,  and  retaining  only  its  fundamental  as¬ 
sumption,  that  the  solar  system  is  a  natural  product,  we  leave 
no  provision  to  meet  a  demand  which  we  allow,  and  we  ought 
to  justify  this  insolvency  by  proving  the  bankruptcy  of  the 
hypothesis  whose  debts  we  thus  assume.  It  would  be  difficult, 
however,  to  prove  that  this  hypothesis  cannot  fulfill  the  promise 
it  has  so  long  held  out.  Much  more  difficult  would  it  be  to 
supply  its  place  with  an  equally  plausible  theory.  But  our  ob¬ 
ject  should  not  be  to  satisfy  the  imagination  with  plausibility. 
If  we  succeed  in  satisfying  our  understanding  with  the  outlines 
of  a  theory  sufficiently  probable,  we  shall  have  done  all  that 
in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  can  reasonably  be  de¬ 
manded. 

The  agencies  of  heat  and  gravitation  acting,  however  slowly, 
through  the  ages  of  limitless  time,  and  according  to  the  law  of 
counter-movements,  or  according  to  the  analogy  of  the  weather, 
constitute  the  means  and  the  general  mode  of  operation 
from  which  we  anticipate  an  explanation  of  the  general  consti¬ 
tutions  of  solar  and  sidereal  systems. 

There  comes  to  our  aid  a  remarkable  series  of  speculations 
and  experiments  recently  promulgated  upon  the  general  sub¬ 
ject  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  heat,  and  under  the  general 
name  of  “The  Dynamical  Theory  of  Heat,”  the  principles  of 
which  we  shall  endeavor  briefly  to  explain.  It  is  a  funda¬ 
mental  theorem  in  mechanical  philosophy,  that  no  motion  can 
be  destroyed,  except  by  the  production  of  other  equivalent  mo¬ 
tions,  or  by  an  equivalent  change  in  the  antecedent  conditions 
of  motion.  If  we  launch  a  projectile  upward,  the  motion 
which  we  impart  to  it  is  not  a  new  creation,  but  is  derived 
from  forces  or  antecedent  conditions  of  motion  of  a  very  com¬ 
plicated  character  in  our  muscular  organism.  It  would  be 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


t8 

confusing  to  consider  these  at  the  outset ;  but  if  we  look  simply 
to  the  motion  thus  produced  in  the  projectile  itself,  we  shall 
gain  the  best  preliminary  notions  as  to  the  character  of  the 
phenomena  of  motion  in  general.  The  projectile  rises  to  a 
certain  height  and  comes  to  rest,  and  then,  unless  caught  upon 
some  elevated  support,  like  the  roof  of  a  house,  it  returns  to 
the  ground  with  constantly  accelerated  motion,  till  it  is  sud¬ 
denly  brought  to  rest  by  collision  with  the  earth.  In  this 
series  of  phenomena  we  have  in  reality  only  a  series  of  com¬ 
mutations  of  motions  and  conditions  of  motion.  The  project¬ 
ile  is  brought  to  rest  at  its  greatest  elevation  by  two  forms  of 
commutation.  A  small  part  of  its  motion  is  given  to  the  air, 
and  the  remainder  is  transformed  into  the  new  condition  of 
motion  represented  by  its  elevated  position.  The  latter  may 
remain  for  a  long  time  permanent  in  case  the  projectile  is 
caught  at  its  greatest  elevation  upon  some  support.  But  a 
small  auxiliary  movement  dislodging  the  projectile  may  at  any 
time  develop  this  condition  of  motion  into  a  movement  nearly 
equal  to  that  which  the  projectile  first  received  from  our  mus¬ 
cles.  The  small  part  that  is  lost  in  the  air  or  other  obstacles 
still  exists,  either  in  some  form  of  motion  or  in  some  new  con¬ 
ditions  of  motion,  and  the  much  greater  part  which  disap¬ 
pears  in  the  collision  of  the  projectile  with  the  earth  is  con¬ 
verted  into  several  kinds  of  vibratory  molecular  movements 
in  the  earth,  in  the  air,  and  in  the  projectile  itself;  and  per¬ 
haps  in  part  also  in  various  new  molecular  conditions  of  mo¬ 
tion. 

If  we  designate  by  the  word  “power”  that  in  which  all  form? 
of  motion  or  antecedent  conditions  of  motion  are  equivalent, 
we  find  that  in  the  operations  of 'nature  no  “power”  is  ever 
lost.  Nor  is  there  any  evidence  that  any  new  “power”  is 
ever  created.  It  would  be  foreign  to  our  purpose  to  follow 
into  their  ramifications  the  speculations  by  which  this  interest¬ 
ing  theorem  has  been  illustrated  in  many  branches  of  physical 
inquiry.  We  are  immediately  interested  only  in  the  three 
principal  and  most  general  manifestations  of  “power”  in  the 
universe,  namely,  the  movements  of  bodies,  the  movements  in 
bodies,  and  the  general  antecedent  conditions  of  both. 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


I9 


The  proposition  that  the  principal  molecular  motions  in 
bodies  are  the  cause  which  produces  in  our  nerves' the  sensa¬ 
tions  of  heat,  or  that  they  are  what  we  denominate  “  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  heat,” — the  objective  cause  of  these  sensations, — 
has  long  been  held  as  a  very  probable  hypothesis ;  and  has 
latterly  received  experimental  confirmations  amounting  to 
complete  proof.  The  three  principal  manifestations  of 
“power”  in  the  universe  are  then,  more  specifically,  the  mass¬ 
ive  motions  of  bodies  in  translation  and  rotation,  their  molecu¬ 
lar  motions,  or  heat ;  and  the  principal  antecedent  condition 
of  both,  or  gravitation. 

In  comparing  these  as  to  their  equivalence  we  obtain  a  sum 
of  “power,”  which  remains  invariable  and  indestructible  by 
the  operations  of  nature.  It  remains  to  determine  the  precise 
relations  of  their  equivalence,  and  what  the  operations  are  by 
which  they  are  converted  into  each  other. 

The  mechanical  equivalent  of  heat  is  a  quantity  which  has 
been  very  accurately  determined  by  experiment.  By  means 
of  it  we  may  very  readily  compute  what  amount  of  heat  would 
be  produced  if  a  given  amount  of  massive  motion  were  con¬ 
verted  into  heat  by  friction  or  otherwise ;  or  conversely,  what 
amount  of  massive  motion  could  be  produced  by  the  conver¬ 
sion  of  a  given  amount  of  heat  into  mechanical  effect ;  but  it 
is  unnecessary  to  our  purpose  to  give  the  precise  method  of 
this  computation. 

The  mechanical  equivalent  of  gravitation  is  another  quantity 
or  relation  depending  on  the  changes  of  what  is  called  the 
“potential”  of  gravitation,  or  the  sum  of  the  ratios  of  the 
masses  to  the  distances  apart  of  the  gravitating  bodies.  The 
“power”  of  motion  is  a  relation  or  quantity,  commonly  called 
the  “living  force  ”  of  motion,  and  depends  on  the  mass  and  on 
the  square  of  the  velocity  of  the  moving  body. 

The  living  forces  of  all  moving  bodies,  minus  the  potentials 
of  their  forces  of  gravitation,  plus  the  mechanical  values  of 
their  heat,  equal  to  a  constant  quantity, — is  the  precise 
formula  to  which  our  cosmical  speculations  should  conform. 
It  will  be  impossible,  however,  to  make  any  other  than  a  very 
general  use  of  this  precise  law.  What  concerns  us  more 


2  o  PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISC  US  SI  O  NS. 

nearly  is  the  consideration  of  the  natural  operations  by  which 
these  manifestations  of  “  power  ”  are  converted  into  each 
other. 

The  origin  of  the  sun’s  light  and  heat  is  a  problem  up<3n 
which  speculative  ingenuity  has  long  been  expended  in  vain. 
The  metaphysical  conclusion,  that  the  sun  is  composed  of  pure 
fire,  or  of  fire  per  se,  the  very  essence  of  fire,  is  one  of  many 
illustrations  of  the  ingenious  way  in  which  speculation  covers 
its  nakedness  with  words,  and  can  really  mean,  we  imagine, 
only  that  the  sun  is  very  hot.  That  the  sun,  like  any  other 
body,  must  grow  cooler  by  the  expenditure  of  heat,  is  without 
doubt  an  indisputable  proposition ;  and  the  question,  how  this 
heat  is  restored  to  it,  is  thus  a  legitimate  one.  The  nebular 
hypothesis  explains  how  the  primitive  heat  in  the  sun  and  in 
other  bodies  could  be  generated  by  the  condensation  of  the 
original  nebulous  mass,  in  which  the  heat  is  supposed  to  have 
been  originally  diffused ;  but  it  affords  no  explanation  of  the 
manner  in  which  this  heat  could  be  sustained  through  the  ages 
that  must  have  elapsed  since  the  nebular  genesis  must  have 
been  completed. 

There  are  no  precise  means  of  estimating  the  amount  of 
heat  contained  in  the  sun,  since  the  capacity  for  heat  of  the 
materials  which  compose  it. are  unknown;  but  from  general 
analogy  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  the  sun  must  grow 
cooler  at  a  sensible  rate,  unless  its  heat  is  in  some  way  re¬ 
newed.  Concerning  the  rate  of  its  expenditure  of  heat,  and 
the  means  which  the  dynamical  theory  of  heat  proposes  to 
supply  the  loss,  we  will  quote  from  the  interesting  lectures 
of  Professor  Tyndall,  “On  Heat  considered  as  a  Mode  of 
Motion.” 

“The  researches  of  Sir  J.  Herschel  and  M.  Pouillet  have  informed  us 
of  the  annual  expenditure  of  the  sun  as  regards  heat,  and  by  an  easy 
calculation  we  ascertain  the  precise  amount  of  the  expenditure  which 
falls  to  the  share  of  our  planet.  Out  of  2,300  million  parts  of  light  and 
heat  the  earth  receives  one.  The  whole  heat  emitted  by  the  sun  in  a 
minute  would  be  competent  to  boil  12,000  millions  of  cubic  miles  of  ice- 
cold  water.  How  is  this  enormous  loss  made  good?  Whence  is  the 
sun’s  heat  derived,  and  by  what  means  is  it  maintained  ?  No  combustion, 
no  chemical  affinity  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  would  be  competent 
to  produce  the  temperature  of  the  sun’s  surface.  Besides,  were  the  sun 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  OWL  VERSE. 


21 


a  burning  body  merely,  its  light  and  heat  would  assuredly  speedily  come 
to  an  end.  Supposing  it  to  be  a  solid  globe  of  coal,  its  combustion  would 
only  cover  4,600  years  of  expenditure.  In  this  short  time  it  would  burn 
itself  out.  What  agency,  then,  can  produce  the  temperature  and  maintain 
the  outlay?  We  have  already  regarded  the  case  of  a  body  falling  from  a 
great  distance  towards  the  earth,  and  found  that  the  heat  generated  by  its 
collision  would  be  twice  that  produced  by  the  combustion  of  an  equal 
weight  of  coal.  How  much  greater  must  be  the  heat  developed  by  a  body 
falling  towards  the  sun  !  The  maximum  velocity  with  which  a  body  can 
strike  the  earth  [arising  from  the  earth’s  attraction]  is  about  7  miles  a 
second  ;  the  maximum  velocity  with  which  it  can  strike  the  sun  is  390 
miles  a  second.  And  as  the  heat  developed  by  the  collision  is  proportional 
to  the  square  of  the  velocity  destroyed,  an  asteroid  falling  into  the  sun 
with  the  above  velocity  would  generate  about  19,000  times  the  quantity 
of  heat  generated  by  the  combustion  of  an  asteroid  of  coal  of  the  same 
weight.  ^ 

“Have  we  any  reason  to  believe  that  such  bodies  exist  in  space,  and 
that  they  may  be  rained  down  upon  the  sun  ?  The  meteorites  flashing 
through  our  air  are  small  planetary  bodies,  drawn  by  the  earth’s  attrac¬ 
tion,  and  entering  our  atmosphere  with  planetary  velocity.  By  friction 
against  the  air  they  are  raised  to  incandescence,  and  caused  to  emit  light 
and  heat.  At  certain  seasons  of  the  year  they  shower  down  upon  us 
in  great  numbers.  In  Boston  [England]  240,000  of  them  were  ob¬ 
served  in  nine  hours.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  planetary 
system  is  limited  to  vast  masses  of  enormous  weight ;  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  space  is  stocked  with  smaller  masses,  which  obey 
the  same  laws  as  the  large  ones.  That  lenticular  envelope  which  sur- 
rounds  the  sun,  and  which  is  known  to  astronomers  as  the  zodiacal 
light,  is  probably  a  crowd  of  meteors ;  and,  moving  as  they  do  in  a 
resisting  medium,  they  must  continually  approach  the  sun.  Falling  into 
it,  they  would  be  competent  to  produce  the  heat  observed,  and  this  would 
constitute  a  source  from  which  the  annual  loss  of  heat  would  be  made 
good.  The  sun,  according  to  this  hypothesis,  would  be  continually  grow¬ 
ing  larger;  but  how  much  larger?  Were  our  moon  to  fall  into  the  sun, 
it  would  develop  an  amount  of  heat  sufficient  to  cover  one  or  two  years’ 
loss ;  and  were  our  earth  to  fall  into  the  sun,  a  century’s  loss  would  be 
made  good.  Still,  our  moon  and  our  earth,  if  distributed  over  the  surface 
of  the  sun,  would  utterly  vanish  from  perception.  Indeed,  the  quantity 
of  matter  competent  to  produce  the  necessary  effect  would,  during  the 
range  of  history,  produce  no  appreciable  augmentation  of  the  sun’s  magni¬ 
tude.  The  augmentation  of  the  sun’s  attractive  force  would  be  more  ap¬ 
preciable.  However  this  hypothesis  may  fare  as  a  representant  of  what  is 
going  on  in  nature,  it  certainly  shows  how  a  sun  might  be  formed  and 
maintained  by  the  application  of  known  thermo-dynamic  principles.”  * 


*  Appendix  to  Lecture  XII.  p.  455. 


22 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


This  part  of  our  inquiry — how  gravitation  and  motion  are 
converted  into  heat — is  receiving  the  amplest  illustration  and 
discussion  from  physicists  at  the  present  time ;  and,  though  the 
somewhat  startling  conclusions  we  have  quoted  are  still  too 
new  to  be  generally  credited,  they  are  too  well  founded  in  ex¬ 
periment  and  the  general  analogies  of  natural  phenomena  to 
be  passed  lightly  by. 

The  second  part  of  our  inquiry — how  heat  is  refunded,  in 
the  eternal  round  of  cosmical  phenomena,  into  the  antecedent 
conditions  of  motion,  or  to  the  conditions  which  preceded  the 
production  of  the  motions  that  are  converted  into  heat — is 
a  subject  to  which  physicists  have  given  little  attention.  In¬ 
deed,  the  cosmological  ideas  which  prevail  in  geological  inqui¬ 
ries  beset  this  subject  also,  and  impede  inquiry.  The  order 
of  nature  is  almost  universally  regarded  as  a  progression  from 
a  determinate  beginning  to  a  determinate  conclusion.  The 
dynamical  theory  of  heat  lengthens  out  the  process  better, 
perhaps,  than  the  nebular  hypothesis  alone;  but  both  leave 
the  universe  at  length  in  a  hopeless  chaos  of  huge,  dark 
masses, — ruined  suns  wandering  in  eternal  night. 

It  seems  not  to  have  occurred  to  physicists  to  inquire  what 
becomes  of  the  heat  the  generation  of  which  requires  so  great 
an  expenditure  of  motion.  The  heat  is,  in  another  form,  the 
same  motion  as  that  which  is  lost  by  the  fallen  bodies.  It  is 
radiated  into  space,  while  the  bodies  .remain  in  the  sun ;  but 
this  radiation  is  still  the  same  motion  in  other  bodies,  in  the 
luminiferous  ether,  or  in  the  diffused  matters  of  spu.ce.  It  can¬ 
not  be  lost  from  the  universe,  and  must  either  accumulate  in 
diffused  materials  or  be  converted  into  other  motions  or  into 
new  conditions  of  motion.  But  if  the  solid  bodies  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  are  gradually  collected  at  certain  centres,  and  their  mo¬ 
tions  are  diffused  in  the  form  of  heat  throughout  the  gaseous 
materials  of  space,  what  do  we  gain  ?  How  do  we  by  such  a 
conclusion  avoid  the  ultimate  catastrophe  which  we  regard  as 
the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  a  scientific  theory  ?  How  do  we 
thereby  constitute  that  cycle  of  movements  which  we  regard 
as  characteristic  of  all  natural  phenomena  ?  Perhaps  we  have 
been  somewhat  too  hasty  in  adopting  the  conclusion  that  the 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


2  3 


fallen  bodies  must  necessarily  remain  in  the  sun,  and  grad 
ually  augment  its  mass.  Let  us,  therefore,  examine  this  point 
more  closely. 

The  principles  of  the  steam-engine  afford  a  clew  to  the 
converse  process  we  are  in  search  of,  by  which  heat  may  be 
refunded  into  mechanical  effects  and  conditions.  The  mechan¬ 
ical  effects  of  the  expanding  power  of  steam  are  only  partially 
developed  in  the  work  which  the  engine  performs.  This  work, 
converted  back  to  heat  by  friction  or  otherwise,  would  be  in¬ 
sufficient  to  reproduce  the  same  effects  in  the  form  of  steam. 
The  remaining  power  consists  in  the  motions  and  the  power 
of  expansion  with  which  the  steam  escapes  from  the  engine. 
This  is  lost  power ;  but  if  it  should  be  allowed  to  develop  itself 
by  an  expansion  of  the  steam  into  an  indefinitely  extended 
vacuum,  the  molecular  motions  of  the  particles  of  the  steam 
would  gradually,  and  on  the  outside  of  the  expanding  vapor¬ 
ous  mass,  be  converted  into  velocities  or  massive  motions  ;  the 
vapor  itself  would  be  converted  back  into  water,  or  even  be 
frozen  into  snow,  and  the  particles  of  this  water  or  snow  would, 
at  the  top  of  the  expanding  cloud,  finally  come  to  rest  by  the 
force  of  gravitation.  A  part,  therefore,  of  the  lost  power  of 
the  heat  which  escaped  in  steam  would  be  converted  into  that 
antecedent  condition  of  motion  represented  by  elevation  above 
the  attracting  mass  of  the  earth  or  by  gravitation ;  a  part  would 
continue  to  manifest  itself  as  velocity  or  massive  motion;  'and 
the  remainder  would  still  continue  to  exert  an  outward  press¬ 
ure  in  the  form  of  heat  in  vapor.  This  development  would 
continue  so  long  as  the  steam  continued  to  discharge  itself  into 
the  indefinitely  extended  vacuum  we  have  supposed.  The 
rain  or  snow  falling  from  the  top  of  the  cloud  would  convert 
its  gravitative  power  back  again  into  motion,  which,  again 
arrested  by  collision  with  the  earth,  would  suffer  other  trans¬ 
formations  in  the  endless  round.  In  the  actual  case,  where 
the  steam  escapes  into  the  air  instead  of  a  vacuum,  the  phe¬ 
nomena  would  be  less  simple.  The  history  of  its  heat  would 
become  involved  with  the  grander  phenomena  of  the  weather, 
— phenomena  that  may  be  regarded  as  typical  of  that  cosmical 
weather,  concerning  the  laws  of  which  we  must  inquire  in  con¬ 
sidering  what  becomes  of  the  sun’s  heat. 


24 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


This  heat  is  capable,  provided  it  could  all  be  so  expended, 
of  lifting  the  amount  of  matter  which,  by  falling  into  the  sun, 
is  supposed  to  produce  it,  to  the  same  height  from  the  sun  as 
that  from  which  the  fallen  bodies  may  be  supposed  to  have 
descended.  This  follows  from  the 'general  mechanical  princi¬ 
ples  we  have  stated.  But  how  is  this  lifting  effected  ?  What 
is  the  Titanic  machinery  by  which  the  sun  performs  this  labor  ? 
The  velocity  with  which  a  body  falling  from  the  interstellar 
spaces  enters  the  body  of  the  sun  is  sufficient,  when  converted 
to  heat  by  friction  and  the  shock,  to  convert  the  body  itself 
into  vapor,  even  if  the  body  be  composed  of  the  least  fusible 
of  materials.  The  heat  thus  produced  is  not,  however,  con¬ 
fined  to  the  fallen  matter.  A  large  portion  is  imparted  to  the  • 
matter  already  in  the  sun;  but  parts,  no  doubt,  both  of  the 
projectile  and  of  the  resisting  material  are  vaporized.  The 
atmosphere  immediately  surrounding  the  sun  contains  the  va¬ 
pors  of  many  of  the  most  refractory  metals  that  are  known, 
as  wre  learn  from  that  wonderful  instrument,  the  spectroscope. 
And  this  is  made  evident  by  the  absorption  from  the  sun’s 
luminous  rays  of  certain  portions  characteristic  of  these  metals. 
Doubtless,  in  absorbing  their  characteristic  vibrations,  these 
metals  are  further  heated  and  expanded,  and  gradually  lifted 
from  the  surface  of  the  sun ;  and  the  vibrations  of  light  and 
heat  that  pass  through  them  and  escape  are  probably  all  ulti¬ 
mately  absorbed  in  the  same  or  some  similar  way  in  the  dif¬ 
fused  materials  of  space.  Tire  speculations  of  the  elder  Struve 
on  the  extinction  of  light  in  its  passage  through  space — con¬ 
clusions  founded  on  Sir  William  Herschel’s  observations  of 
the  Milky-Way — afford  a  happy  and  independent  confirmation 
of  these  views.  Moreover,  the  spectroscopic  analyses  of  the 
light  of  the  stars  show  broad  dark  bands,  indicative  of  great 
extinctions  of  light.  And  we  may  add,  that  many  gases  and 
vapors  which  are  transparent  to  luminous  rays  are  found  to 
absorb  the  obscure  rays  of  heat. 

Such  is  the  kind  of  evidence  we  have  of  what  becomes  of  the 
light  and  heat,  and  a  portion,  at  least,  of  the  material  of  the 
sun.  The  heat  which  is  not  expended  immediately  in  vapor¬ 
izing  these  materials  is  ultimately  extinguished  in  further  heat- 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


25 


ing,  expanding,  and  thus  lifting  the  materials  (may  we  not  be¬ 
lieve  ?)  which  have  already  been  partially  raised  to  the  height, 
whence  perhaps,  in  former  ages,  they  in  their  turn  were  rained 
down  as  meteors  upon  the  sun.  In  these  suppositions  we  have 
exactly  reversed  the  nebular  hypothesis.  Instead  of,  in  former 
ages,  a  huge  gaseous  globe  contracted  by  cooling  and  by  gravi¬ 
tation,  and  consolidated  at  its  centre,  we  have  supposed  one 
now  existing,  and  filling  that  portion  of  the  interstellar  spaces 
over  which  the  sun’s  attraction  predominates, — a  highly  rarefied 
continuous  gaseous  mass,  constantly  evaporated  and  expanded 
from  its  solid  centre,  but  constantly  condensed  and  consoli¬ 
dated  near  its  outer  limits, — constantly  heated  at  its  centre 
by  the  fall  of  solid  bodies  from  its  outer  limits,  and  constantly 
cooled  and  condensed  at  these  limits  by  the  conversion  of  heat 
into  motion  and  the  arrest  of  this  motion  by  gravitation. 

There  are  certain  chemical  objections  which  apply  equally 
to  the  views  here  advanced  and  to  the  nebular  hypothesis. 
But  these  must  necessarily  arise  from  the  limits  to  the  knowl¬ 
edge  we  can  gain  of  the  whole  range  of  chemical  phenomena. 
For  what  takes  place  in  the  chemist’s  laboratory,  under  the 
very  limited  conditions  of  temperature  and  pressure  he  can 
command,  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  determining  the  possi¬ 
bilities,  or  even  the  probabilities,  of  that  cosmical  chemistry  of 
which  we  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  know  even  the  rudiments. 
We  shall  consider  this  subject,  however,  more  particularly, 
after  attending  to  what  is  now  of  more  immediate  interest, 
namely,  the  secondary  mechanical  conditions  and  phenomena 
that  result  from  the  suppositions  we- have  made;  and  particu¬ 
larly  the  question,  how  the  systems  of  the  planets  and  their 
satellites  stand  related  to  the  round  of  changes  we  have  con¬ 
sidered. 

The  fundamental  and  most  important  motions  of  the  solar 
system  are,  as  we  suppose,  the  radial  movements  of  solid  bodies 
inward  and  of  gaseous  bodies  outward,  arising  from  the  coun¬ 
teractions  of  gravitation  and  heat.  But  these  radial  move¬ 
ments  must  assume  a  vortical  form,  if  one  does  not  already 
exist,  such  as  is  constantly  exhibited  by  movements  in  the  air 
and  in  water.  The  rotation  of  the  sun,  imparted  to  the  mate- 


2 


26 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


rials  which  rise  in  vapor  from  its  surface,  continues  in  them 
as  they  rise  higher  and  higher,  and  though  exhibited  in  a  con 
stantly  diminishing  tangential  motion,  remains  in  reality  con¬ 
stant,  as  measured  by  what  mechanicians  term  “rotation  area.” 
Or,  rather,  it  is  slowly  increased  by  the  mutual  resistances  of 
contiguous  strata  in  the  expanding  gases,  so  that  when  this 
matter  f&lls  again  towards  the  sun  in  the  form  of  solid  bodies, 
it  falls  in  spiral  trajectories,  and  only  reaches  the  sun  after 
perhaps  many  revolutions,  or  not  at  all,  unless  its  motions  be 
rapidly  diminished  by  the  resisting  medium.  If  the  resistance 
of  the  medium  is  not  sufficient  to  convert  the  path  of  a  falling 
meteor  into  a  spiral,  the  meteor  will  mount  again,  and  con¬ 
tinue  to  move  perhaps  for  a  long  time  in  an  eccentric  orbit, 
like  a  comet.  When,  however,  the  meteor  at  length,  in  any 
way,  reaches  the  sun,  a  part  of  its  motion  is  expended  in  in¬ 
creasing  the  sun’s  rotation,  and  thus  compensating  the  loss 
of  motion  continually  sustained  by  the  sun  in  the  evaporation 
of  its  material.  The  denser  the  resisting  medium  is  in  any 
system,  the  greater  will  be  the  revolution  of  its  outer  parts, 
and  the  larger  will  be  the  spiral  trajectories  which  its  falling 
bodies  will  describe.  Such  spiral  or  vortical  motions  as  would 
thus  be  produced,  or  rather  sustained,  in  the  matter  surround¬ 
ing  the  sun,  is  exhibited  by  the  most  powerful  telescopes,  in 
the  forms  of  the  appendages  to  certain  nebulous  stars,  and  in 
the  structure  of  the  so-called  Spiral  Nebulae.  Perhaps  the 
bodies  which  are  supposed  to  give  rise  to  the  appearance  of 
the  zodiacal  light  would  exhibit  some  such  spiral  arrangement, 
if  seen  from  a  point  far  above  or  below  the  ecliptic. 

It  follows  from  this  vortical  motion,  that  the  form  which  the 
diffused  materials  of  the  solar  system  would  assume,  or  rather 
maintain,  would  be  that  of  an  oblate  ellipsoid  or  of  a  flattened 
lenticular  body.  The  height  to  which  the  matter  would  rise 
in  the  plane  of  the  sun’s  equator  before  its  massive  and  molec¬ 
ular  motions  would  be  arrested  by  gravitation,  would  be  much 
greater  than  in  the  directions  of  the  sun’s  axis  of  rotation. 
The  degree  of  oblateness  which  such  a  system  of  diffused  mat¬ 
ter  will  maintain  depends  on  the  frictions  or  resistances  that 
successive  strata  exert  on  each  other.  It  should  be  borne  in 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


27 


mind  in  this  connection  that  friction  is  not  a  loss  of  force, 
where  all  kinds  of  force  are  taken  into  account.  Friction  or 
resistance  can  only  effect  a  conversion  of  massive  into  molecu¬ 
lar  motions,  or  the  motion  of  velocity  into  the  motion  of  heat. 
Hence,  whatever  velocity  is  lost  by  interior  strata  in  the  gase¬ 
ous  materials  of  the  solar  system,  and  is  not  gained  by  those 
exterior  to  them,  must  yet  be  ultimately  restored;  for  the  sta¬ 
bility  of  such  a  system  is  no  longer  a  question ;  this  is  insured 
in  the  fundamental  mechanical  law  on  which  our  speculations 
are  founded. 

It  may  still  be  a  question,  however,  whether  the  planetary 
bodies  of  such  a  system  are  successively  produced  and  de¬ 
stroyed,  like  generations  of  animals  and  plants,  or  whether 
they  are  permanent  elements  in  a  system  of  balanced  forces 
and  operations.  So  far  as  the  effects  of  mutual  perturbation 
are  concerned,  and  independently  of  a  resisting  medium,  as¬ 
tronomers  have  shown  that  the  latter  supposition  is  the  more 
probable  one ;  but  there  are  several  other  considerations  which 
point  to  a  different  conclusion.  In  the  first  place,  the  consid¬ 
erations  already  mentioned.  The  existence  of  systematic  rela¬ 
tions  in  the  structure  of  the  solar  system,  some  of  which  are 
independent  of  its  stability  under  the  law  of  gravity,  indicate 
the  operations  of  causes  other  than  the  simple  ones  on  which 
this  stability  depends, — such  causes  as  the  nebular  hypothesis 
endeavored  to  define,  but  which  we,  in  rejecting  this  hypothe¬ 
sis,  have  still  to  search  for. 

It  has  undoubtedly  occurred  to  our  readers  to  ask  how  the 
planets  stand  related  to  the  meteoric  system,  and  in  what  man¬ 
ner,  if  at  all,  their  motions  and  masses  are  affected  by  this  per¬ 
petual  shower  of  matter.  As  out  of  every  two  thousand 
million  parts  of  the  light  and  heat  of  the  sun’s  radiation  the 
earth  receives  one  part,  so  out  of  the  two  thousand  million 
meteors  sent  back  in  return  the  earth  will  receive  one,  or  per¬ 
haps  a  somewhat  larger  proportion,  since  the  meteors  are  sup¬ 
posed  to  fall  most  thickly  near  the  plane  of  the  sun’s  equator. 
If  we  multiply  this  proportion  by  ten,  as  we  probably  may,  it 
is  still  a  very  small  quantity;  but  if  we  are  permitted  to  multi¬ 
ply  it  by  a  factor  of  time  as  great  as  we  please,  this  insignifi- 


28 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


cance  will  disappear,  and  in  its  place  we  shall  have  a  cosmical 
cause  of  the  greatest  moment  in  the  history  of  the  solar  sys¬ 
tem.  Two  hundred  million  years  is  but  a  day  in  the  cosmical 
eras,  yet  in  that  time  the  earth, could  receive  as  many  bodies 
as  fall  to  the  sun  in  a  year,  or  a  hundredth  part  of  the  mass  of 
the  earth  itself.  In  a  hundred  such  days,  then,  the  earth 
might  be  built  up  by  the  aggregation  of  meteors,  provided  it 
should  lose  none  of  the  material  thus  collected,  as  the  sun 
probably  does.  But  this  calculation  proceeds  on  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  the  earth  would  have  caught  as  many  meteors  when 
it  was  smaller,  as  it  probably  does  now.  A  correction  is  there¬ 
fore  required  which  lengthens  the  period  to  three  hundred  such 
days,  or  to  about  a  cosmical  year,  if  we  may  so  estimate  times 
which  are  without  limits  or  measure.  In  sixty  thousand  mil¬ 
lion  years,  then,  the  earth  could  have  been  made  by  the  ag¬ 
gregation  of  meteors.*  In  this  time  the  sun  itself  would  have 
received  and  evaporated  fifteen  hundred  times  the  amount  of 
its  present  mass,  provided  a  permanent  amount  of  matter  and 
heat  should  have  been  maintained  in  it  during  so  long  a  period. 
In  these  estimates  no  account  is  taken  of  the  heat  immedi¬ 
ately  absorbed  in  evaporation,  or  absorbed  in  the  space  in¬ 
cluded  within  the  earth’s  orbit.  This  heat  would  probably 
require  a  still  greater  expenditure  of  motion,  and  the  fall  of  a 
still  greater  number  of  bodies.  Hence  the  period  required  to 
build  up  the  earth’s  mass  might  be  materially  shortened. 

Such  a  method  of  inquiry,  however,  violates  the  canon  we 
have  laid  down  for  our  guidance  in  physical  speculation.  We 
must  not  suppose  any  action  in  nature  to  which  there  is  not 
some  counteraction,  and  no  mode  of  production,  however 
slow,  from  which  in  infinite  time  there  could  result  an  infinite 

*  Most  of  the  materials  which  fall  to  the  earth  are  probably  in  the  form  of  very  small 
bodies,  which  must  be  disintegrated  by  heat  in  their  passage  through  the  atmosphere, 
and  must  consequently  reach  the  earth’s  surface  in  the  form  of  fine  dust.  At  the  rate 
of  accumulation  estimated  above,  this  dust,  when  reduced  to  the  mean  density  of  the 
earth’s  materials,  would  add  one  foot  to  the  thickness  of  its  crust  in  about  three  thousand 
years.  In  the  loose  form  of  dust  or  mud  this  accumulation  would  amount  to  about  a 
hundredth  of  oh  inch  in  a  year.  The  materials  which  have  accumulated  within  histor¬ 
ical  periods  over  the  ruins  of  ancient  cities  may  thus  in  great  part  have  been  collected 
from  the  sky.  The  agencies  of  the  winds  and  of  flowing  water  in  transporting  and  de¬ 
positing  the  loose  materials  of  the  earth’s  surface  would  distribute  this  star-dust  in  de¬ 
posits  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  in  hills  and  mounds  on  the  land. 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


29 


product.  We  must,  therefore,  conclude  that  the  planets  either 
ultimately  fall  into  the  sun,  and  make  a  restitution  of  their 
peculations,  or  that  heat  and  gravitation  preserve  in  them  also 
the’  balance  of  nature  and  the  golden  mean  of  virtue.  The 
existence  of  a  resisting  medium  favors  the  first  supposition, 
unless  it  can  be  rendered  probable  that  this  medium  revolves 
with  velocities  equal  to  those  of  the  planets  at  the  same  dis¬ 
tances  from  the  sun.  There  is  also  another  cause  affecting  the 
mean  distances  of  the  planets.  An  increase  of  mass  in  the 
sun  will  diminish  the  size  of  the  planetary  orbits,  and  con¬ 
versely  a  diminution  of  this  mass  will  increase  the  size  of  these 
orbits.  The  rate  of  change  in  the  mass  of  the  sun,  whether 
to  increase  or  to  decrease,  must  depend  on  the  relative  rates 
of  cooling  by  radiation  and  by  evaporation.  As  the  sun 
grows  cooler  by  excessive  radiation,  its  mass  must  be  increased 
by  the  fall  of  meteors,  and  the  planets  will  draw  nearer  to  the 
sun ;  but  if  its  radiation  be  diminished,  and  a  larger  proportion 
of  the  heat  be  expended  in  evaporation,  then  the  planets  will 
withdraw  from  the  sun.  Such  are  the  causes  which  may  affect 
the  mean  distances  of  the  planets. 

If  on  such  grounds  we  may  adopt  the  first  of  our  supposi¬ 
tions,  that  the  planets  are  successively  formed  and  finally  lost 
in  the  sun,  like  the  meteors,  the  most  probable  hypothesis  we 
can  make  concerning  their  origin  is,  that  they  are  formed  by 
the  aggregation  of  meteors.  Certain  conditions,  which,  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge,  it  would  perhaps  be  impossible 
to  define,  must  determine  the  distances  from  the  sun  where 
these  aggregations  will  begin ;  but  the  body  and  the  attraction 
of  the  planet,  when  once  begun,  will  determine  further  aggre¬ 
gation  until  the  planet  either  falls  into  the  sun,  or  approaches 
to  such  a  distance  that  the  evaporation  of  its  material  keeps 
pace  with  the  fall  of  matter  upon  it.  The  size  to  which  a 
planet  could  attain  would  thus  be  determined  by  the  distance 
from  the  sun  at  which  it  begins  to  grow.  A  nearly  circular 
orbit,  and  a  small  inclination  of  its  plane  to  the  plane  of  the 
sun’s  equator,  would  result  from  the  circumstances  attending 
the  fall  of  the  meteors, — their  approach  to  the  sun  from  every 


3° 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


direction  near  the  plane  of  the  sun’s  equator.*  A  vortical 
motion  and  a  rotation  of  the  planet  might  result  from  such 
aggregations,  which  would  be  analogous  to  those  of  the  sun 
and  the  general  system.  A  more  rigorous  and  comprehensive 
discussion  of  such  problems  than  has  yet  been  attempted  is 
required  before  trustworthy  conclusions  can  be  formed. 

The  following  considerations  may  materially  affect  the  con¬ 
clusions  we  have  drawn  from  the  existence  of  a  resisting  me¬ 
dium.  The  gaseous  medium  of  the  solar  system  might  receive 
from  the  sun’s  rotation,  and  by  the  mutual  friction  of  its  own 
materials,  greater  velocities  in  its  interior  parts  than  the  planets 
could  have  at  the  same  distances  from  the  sun,  provided  the 
exterior  parts  should  move  with  less  than  planetary  velocities, 
and  should  press  with  a  portion  of  their  weight  upon  the  parts 
below  them.  For  the  centrifugal  forces  of  the  interior  parts 
might  thus  be  balanced,  not  merely  by  their  own  gravitation, 
but  by  a  portion  also  of  the  weight  of  the  superincumbent 
masses.  At  a  distance  from  the  sun  less  than  half  the  mean 
distance  of  the  planet  Mercury,  a  period  of  revolution  equal 
to  that  of  the  sun  would  produce  a  planetary  velocity.  At  a 
greater  distance,  the  medium  might  revolve  more  rapidly  than 
the  planets.  But  there  must  be  a  limit  where  the  revolutions 
would  be  simply  self-sustaining,  and  beyond  this  the  medium 
would  move  less  rapidly  than  the  planets.  So  far,  therefore, 
as  a  resisting  medium  could  affect  the  motions  of  the  planetary 
bodies,  it  might  tend  to  increase  the  dimensions  of  the  interior 
orbits,  and  to  diminish  those  of  the  exterior  ones;  and  it  would 
thus  tend  to  concentrate  the  planets,  not  in  the  sun,  but  at  this 
limiting  distance,  where  the  medium  would  neither  accelerate 
nor  retard  their  motions.  The  motions  of  the  medium  would 
produce  the  greatest  effect  upon  the  smaller  bodies  of  the  solar 
system,  which  would,  therefore,  approach  most  rapidly  to  this 
limiting  distance.  That  region  in  the  solar  system,  about  half 
the  distance  from  the  sun  to  the  orbit  of  Jupiter,  which  is  so 
thickly  crowded  with  small  planetary  bodies  or  asteroids,  may 


*  The  rare  occurrence  of  spots  on  the  sun  beyond  thirty  degrees  either  side  of  its 
equator  may  indicate  some  connection  between  these  spots  and  the  fall  of  meteors  and 
serve  to  determine  the  limits  of  the  meteoric  system. 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


31 


be  regarded,  on  this  hypothesis,  as  the  region  in  which  the 
gaseous  medium  now  revolves  with  planetary  velocity.  Could 
this  limiting  distance  remain  fixed  for  a  very  long  period,  most 
of  the  planetary  masses  of  the  solar  system  might  accumulate 
there,  and  be  concentrated  into  one  huge  planet  or  secondary 
sun,  and  the  solar  system  would  thus  be  converted  into  a 
binary  system,  like  those  observed  among  the  stars.  But  from 
the  small  amount  of  matter  probably  contained  in  the  asteroid 
system,  we  ought  to  conclude  that  this  limiting  distance  changes 
from  time  to  time,  as  the  medium  grows  denser  or  rarer. 

The  planets  are  not  the  only  aggregations  of  meteoric  bodies 
which  we  have  to  account  for.  Besides  the  comets,  there  are 
probably  streams  of  meteors  falling  to  or  circulating  # around 
the  sun.  This  is  rendered  very  probable  by  the  phenomena  of 
the  showers  of  these  bodies  which  fall  into  our  atmosphere  at 
certain  seasons  of  the  year,  or  at  certain  positions  in  the  earth’s 
orbit.*  And  further,  the  rings  of  Saturn  are  probably  examples 
of  the  same  kind  of  meteoric  aggregation.  For  of  the  three 
hypotheses  in  regard  to  the  constitution  of  these  rings  which 
have  been  submitted  to  rigorous  mathematical  examination, — 
namely,  first,  that  they  are  solid,  secondly,  that  they  are  fluid, 
and,  thirdly,  that  they  are  composed  of  distinct  bodies  or  me¬ 
teors, — the  latter  is  the  only  one  which  has  been  found  to 
afford  the  conditions  of  stability  which  are  implied  in  their 
continued  existence.  It  is  unnecessary  to  add  the  physical 
reasons  which  render  this  hypothesis  still  more  probable. 

We  have  no  space  to  consider  the  many  interesting  geological 


*  There  is  a  period  of  about  eleven  years  in  the  numbers  of  spots  that  appear  on 
the  surface  of  the  sun,  a  period  coincident  with  that  of  the  amount  of  diurnal  variations 
in  terrestrial  magnetism, — an  amount  undoubtedly  due  to  the  influence  of  the  sun. 
This  period  also  coincides  nearly  with  the  period  of  the  revolution  of  Jupiter,  the  largest 
planet  in  our  system.  If,  then,  we  may  suppose  that  the  sun’s  spots  are  occasioned  by 
the  fall  of  large  meteors,  the  courses  of  which  lie  near  to  the  orbit  of  Jupiter,  the  attrac¬ 
tions  of  this  planet,  alternately  turning  such  a  stream  of  bodies  upon  and  away  from  the 
surface  of  the  sun,  would  connect  these  three  nearly  coincident  periods  by  a  common 
physical  cause. 

The  phenomena  of  magnetism  and  electricity,  as  subordinate  manifestations  of  motion 
and  conditions  of  motion,  have  not  been  included  in  our  speculations  on  the  commuta¬ 
tions  of  “power,”  on  account  of  their  insignificant  values  as  compared  with  the  three 
principal  forms  of  “power.”  For  the  same  reason,  we  omit  any  consideration  of  the 
numerous  but  minute  modifications  of  “power”  which  are  manifested  by  the  forces  of 
vital  phenomena  on  the  surface  of  the  earth. 


32 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


consequences  which  follow  from  our  hypothesis.  Let  it  suffice 
to  remark,  that  the  formation  of  the  earth’s  mass  by  meteoric 
aggregation  precludes  the  hypothesis,  otherwise  improbable 
that  the  core  of  the  earth  is  a  molten  mass.  The  occurrence 
of  volcanoes  in  local  systems,  distinct  from  each  other,  points 
to  local  causes  of  an  unknown  chemical  character  as  the  true 
sources  of  these  phenomena.  The  heterogeneous  character  of 
the  materials  of  the  earth’s  crust,  in  which  are  mingled,  in  the 
most  intimate  manner,  all  kinds  of  substances,  irrespectively  of 
their  chemical  affinities,  and  in  opposition  to  their  chemical 
forces  of  aggression,  could  hardly  be  the  results  of  the  actions 
of  heat  and  aqueous  solution,  both  of  which  afford  conditions 
favorable  to  chemical  aggregation.  Indeed,  in  most  cases  in 
which  such  aggregation  occurs,  where  homogeneous  and  chem¬ 
ically  simple  substances  are  found  in  considerable  quantities, 
the  agency  either  of  heat  or  aqueous  solution  is  evident.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  add,  that  the  theory  of  meteoric  aggregation 
is  the  one  which  would  most  readily  explain  these  facts. 

But  we  must  here  leave  the  consideration  of  these  interest¬ 
ing  problems,  and  return  to  a  topic  much  more  obscure,  to 
which  we  called  attention  a  few  pages  back. 

The  dynamical  theory  of  heat  has  not  only  suggested  new 
and  interesting  inquiries  concerning  the  constitution  of  the 
universe,  but  it  throws  new  light  in  the  philosophy  of  chemical 
phenomena  on  such  problems  as  the  origin  of  the  three  states 
of  aggregation  in  matter,  and  on  the  character  of  the  changes 
which  may  take  place  under  circumstances  beyond  the  reach 
of  chemical  experiments  and  observation. 

That  the  dreams  of  the  alchemists  were  at  fault  rather  in 
point  of  method  than  of  doctrine,  is  a  confession  which  the 
modern  chemist  must  make,  when  he  compares  the  slight  re¬ 
sources  of  experiment  at  his  command  with  the  possibilities  of 
nature.  If,  as  has  been  surmised,  the  characteristic  properties 
of  different  kinds  of  matter  consist  in  characteristic  internal 
or  molecular  motions  (and  molecular  conditions  of  motion),  a 
complete  destruction  of  such  motions  would  obliterate  all  the 
characteristic  differences  of  matter,  and  such  a  result  might 
be  attained  by  the  production  of  absolute  cold.  In  respect  to 


A  PHYSICAL  THEORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSE. 


33 


the  motions  of  light  and  heat,  however,  the  universe,  so  far  as 
we  know  it,  and  even  so  far  as  we  could  know  it,  is  a  perfectly 
continuous  body.  In  no  corner  or  recess  of  its  unfathomable 
depths  to  which  the  feeblest  light  of  a  single  star  could  find  its 
way,  can  there  be  an  absence  of  the  motions  of  light  and  heat. 
Nothing  can  set  bounds  to  the  all-pervading  reach  of  these  mo¬ 
tions  except  limits  to  that  medium  of  motion,  the  luminiferous 
ether;  and  these,  so  far  as  all  cognizable  physical  conditions 
are  concerned,  would  be  limits  to  space  itself.  That  potent 
sidereal  influence,  the  absolute  cold,  transmuting  all  substances 
into  one,  could  only  arise  momentarily,  in  nodal  points  or  lines 
or  surfaces,  but  could  not  be  extended  discontinuously  into 
space  of  three  dimensions.  What  may  happen  at  such  times 
and  limits,  where  matter,  expiring  from  one  form  of  chemical 
life,  may  be  awakened  to  another,  according  to  the  kind  of 
molecular  agitation  which  may  next  overtake  it,  and  deter¬ 
mine  its  history,  perhaps  for  myriads  of  years,  is  what  the 
chemist  cannot  tell  us,  and  only  the  alchemist  can  dream.  It 
suffices  for  our  instruction,  that  the  chemistry  of  absolute  cold 
has  possibilities  of  which  experimental  chemistry  affords  no 
criterion,  and  may  play  a  part  in  the  economy  of  nature  not 
inferior  to  that  of  gravitation  or  heat. 

But  it  may  be  objected,  on  grounds  of  experimental  chem¬ 
istry,  “that  the  sun’s  heat,  though  sufficient  to  volatize  the 
least  fusible  materials,  could  not  keep  them  in  the  form  of 
vapor  at  the  heights  and  in  the  temperature  of  the  interplan¬ 
etary  spaces,  much  less  lift  them  in  the  form  of  vapor  to  the 
heights  of  the  interstellar  regions  whence  the  meteors  are  sup¬ 
posed  to  fall.  For  most  bodies  which  are  solid  at  ordinary  ter¬ 
restrial  temperatures  tend,  upon  cooling,  to  crystallize  with 
such  energy  that  they  would  soon  be  precipitated  from  the 
vaporous  form.”  But  this  objection  takes  no  account  of  those 
effects  of  diffusion,  expansion,  and  commingling  of  heterogene¬ 
ous  materials,  which  must  remove  the  parts  of  a  volatilized 
body  to  such  hopeless  distances  from  each  other  that  the  forces 
of  chemical  aggregation  might  require  ages  to  collect  what  is 
thus  dispersed.  Nor  can  any  account  be  taken  of  such  un¬ 
known  laws  of  chemical  affinity  and  aggregation  as  are  possible 


34 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


under  the  circumstances  we  are  considering.  The  known  laws 
of  chemical  action  should,  then,  be  ranked  with  those  laws  of 
life,  exhibited  in  the  phenomena  of  growth,  which  were  too 
hastily  generalized  and  applied,  in  “the  theory  of  evolution,” 
to  the  interpretation  of  the  riddles  and  the  explication  of  the 
order  of  the  System  of  the  World, 


NATURAL  THEOLOGY  AS  A  POSITIVE 

SCIENCE.* 


Natural  history  and  anatomy  have  hitherto  furnished  the 
principal  grounds  to  the  theologian  for  the  speculation  of  final 
causes,  since  these  sciences  exhibit  many  instances  of  a  com¬ 
plex  combination  of  causes  in  the  structures  and  habits  of  or¬ 
ganic  bodies,  and  at  the  same  time  a  distinct  and  peculiar  class 
of  effects,  namely,  those  which  constitute  the  well-being  and 
perfection  of  organic  life;  and  from  these  causes  and  effects, 
regarded  as  means  and  ends  in  the  order  of  nature,  the  argu¬ 
ments  and  illustrations  of  natural  theology  have  been  chiefly 
drawn.  The  facts  of  these  sciences  are  not  merely  the  most 
useful  to  the  theologian ;  they  are  indeed  indispensable,  and 
occupy  a  peculiar  position  in  his  argument,  since  they  alone 
afford  the  class  of  effects  on  which,  assumed  as  ends,  the  spec¬ 
ulation  of  final  causes  ultimately  rests. 

It  is  only  by  assuming  human  welfare,  or  with  this  the  wel¬ 
fare  also  of  other  sentient  beings,  as  the  end  for  which  the  uni¬ 
verse  exists,  that  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  has  hitherto 
found  any  support  in  natural  science. 

Though  it  is  still  maintained  by  theologians  that  the  argu¬ 
ments  for  design  are  properly  inductive  arguments,  yet  the 
physical  proofs  of  natural  theology  are  not  regarded  by  many 
modern  writers  .as  having  any  independent  weight;  and  it  is 
in  mental  and  moral  science  that  the  facts  are  sought  which 
will  warrant  the  induction  of  design  from  the  general  phenom¬ 
ena  of  nature.  It  is  hardly  considered  logical,  even  by  the 
theological  writers  of  our  day,  to  conclude,  with  Paley,  “  that 


*  From  the  North  American  Review,  for  January,  1865. 


36 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


the  works  of  nature  proceed  from  intelligence  and  design  ;  be¬ 
cause,  in  the  properties  of  relation  to  a  purpose,  subserviency  to 
a  use,  they  resemble  what  intelligence  and  design  are  con¬ 
stantly  producing,  and  what  nothing  [which  we  know]  except 
intelligence  and  design  ever  produce  at  all.”  For  it  is  denied 
by  the  physical  philosopher  that  causes  and  effects  in  natural 
phenomena  can  be  interpreted  into  the  terms  of  natural  theol¬ 
ogy  by  any  key  which  science  itself  affords.  By  what  crite¬ 
rion,  he  would  ask,  can  we  distinguish  among  the  numberless 
effects,  that  are  also  causes,  and  among  the  causes  that  may, 
for  aught  we  can  know,  be  also  effects, — how  can  we  distin¬ 
guish  which  are  the  means  and  which  are  the  ends  ?  What 
effects  are  we  warranted  by  observation  in  calling  final,  or  final 
causes,  or  the  ends  for  which  the  others  exist  ?  The  belief 
on  other  grounds  that  there  are  final  causes,  that  the  universe 
exists  for  some  purpose,  is  one  thing;  but  the  belief  that  sci¬ 
ence  discloses,  or  even  that  science  can  disclose,  what  this 
purpose  is,  is  quite  a  different  thing.  The  designation  of  those 
effects  as  final  in  nature  which  contribute  to  human  desires  or 
human  welfare,  or  even  to  the  welfare  of  all  sentient  beings, 
cannot  be  legitimately  made  for  the  purpose  of  this  argument, 
since  human  and  other  sentient  beings  are  not  the  agents  by 
which  these  supposed  ends  are  attained;  neither  can  the 
causes  which  bring  these  effects  to  pass  be  regarded  as  ser¬ 
vants  obedient  to  the  commands  of  the  agents  to  whom  these 
effects  are  desirable.  The  analogy  of  natural  production  to 
human  contrivance  fails  them  at  the  very  outset;  and  the  in¬ 
terpretation  of  natural  causes  and  effects  as  means  and  ends, 
virtually  assumes  the  conclusion  of  the  argument,  and  is  not 
founded  on  any  natural  evidence.  These  considerations  are 
overlooked  by  most  writers  on  this  subject,  who,  in  addition 
to  a  legitimate  faith  in  final  causes,  assume  the  dogma  that 
these  causes  are  manifest  or  discoverable.  They  begin  with 
the  definition,  sometimes  called  an  argument,  “that  a  combi¬ 
nation  of  means  conspiring  to  a  particular  end  implies  intelli¬ 
gence,”  and  they  then  assume  that  the  causes  which  science 
discovers  are  means,  or  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  effects  which 
science  accounts  for ;  and  from  the  relation  of  means  to  ends, 
thus  assumed,  they  infer  intelligence. 


NATURAL  THEOLOGY  AS  A  POSLTIVE  SCLENCE. 


37 


The  definition  we  have  quoted  contains,  however,  more 
than  is  really  implied  in  this  argument,  since  the  relation  of 
means  to  ends  in  itself,  and  without  further  qualification,  im¬ 
plies  intelligence,  while  a  combination  of  means  conspiring  to 
a  particular  end  implies  a  high  degree  of  intelligence ;  and  it 
is  with  this,  the  degree  of  intelligence  manifested  in  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  nature,  that  scientific  discourses  on  the  natural  evi¬ 
dences  are  really  dealing,  though  sometimes  unconsciously. 
These  discourses  really  aim,  not  so  much  to  prove  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  design  in  the  universe,  as  to  show  the  wisdom  of  cer¬ 
tain  designs  which  are  assumed  to  be  manifest.  But  for  this 
purpose  it  is  requisite  to  translate  the  facts  of  science,  and 
those  combinations  of  causes  which  are  discovered  to  be  the 
conditions  of  particular  effects,  into  the  terms  of  the  argument, 
and  to  show  that  these  combinations  are  means,  or  exist  for 
the  sake  of  particular  effects,  for  which,  as  ends,  the  universe 
itself  must  be  shown  to  exist, — a  task  for  which  science  is  ob¬ 
viously  incompetent. 

Waiving  these  fundamental  objections  to  the  argument  for 
design,  which,  let  us  repeat,  are  not  objections  to  the  spiritual 
doctrine  of  final  causes,  or  to  the  belief  that  final  causes  exist, 
we  will  turn  to  the  objections  which  modern  writers  of  natu¬ 
ral  theology  themselves  allow. 

It  is  essential  to  the  validity  of  Paley’s  argument,  that  “  de¬ 
sign,”  or  the  determination  of  effects  by  the  intelligence  of  an 
agent,  be  shown  to  be  not  merely  the  only  known  cause  of 
such  effects,  but  also  to  be  a  real  cause,  or  an  independent  de¬ 
termination  by  an  efficient  agent.  If  intelligence  itself  be  a 
product,  if  the  human  powers  of  contrivance  are  themselves 
effects,  it  follows  that  designed  effects  should  be  ascribed,  not 
to  intelligence,  but  to  the  causes  of  intelligence ;  and  the  same 
objection  will  hold  against  the  theologian’s  use  of  the  word 
“design,”  which  he  urges  against  the  physicist’s  use  of  the 
word  “law.”  “It  is  a  perversion  of  language,”  says  Paley, 
“to  assign  any  law  as  the  efficient  operative  cause  of  anything. 
A  law  presupposes  an  agent,  for  it  only  is  the  mode  according 
to  which  the  agent  proceeds ;  it  implies  a  power,  for  it  is  the 
order  according  to  which  this  power  acts.  Without  this  agent, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


without  this  power,  which  are  both  distinct  from  itself,  the 
daw’  does  nothing,  is  nothing.”  By  substituting  the  word 
“design”  for  the  word  “law”  in  this  quotation,  we  have  the 
materialist’s  objection  to  the  theologian’s  perversion  of  lan¬ 
guage.  This  objection  was  entirely  overlooked  by  Paley,  who 
seems  to  have  thought  it  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  his  ar¬ 
gument  to  consider  only  the  phenomena  of  the  visible  material 
universe.  But  later  writers  have  seen  the  necessity  of  basing 
the  argument  for  design  on  the  psychological  doctrine  that  in¬ 
telligence  is  a  free,  undetermined  power,  and  that  design  is  the 
free,  undetermined  act  of  this  power.  Without  this  assump¬ 
tion,  which  indeed  Paley  himself  virtually  makes,  it  would  be 
as  unphilosophical  to  refer  the  course  of  nature  to  the  deter¬ 
mination  of  intelligence,  as  it  is  to  refer  it  to  the  determination 
of  the  abstraction  which  the  materialist  prefers,  or  to  the 
“agency  of  law.” 

“That  intelligence  stands  first  in  the  absolute  order  of  exist¬ 
ence, — in  other  words,  that  final  preceded  efficient  causes, — 
and  that  the  universe  is  governed  by  moral  laws,”  are  the  two 
propositions,  the  proof  of  which,  says  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
is  the  proof  of  a  God ;  and  this  proof  “  establishes  its  founda¬ 
tion  exclusively  on  the  phenomena  of  mind.”  Without  this 
psychological  proof,  the  order  of  adaptation  cannot  be  logically 
referred  to  the  order  of  design ;  and  the  resemblance  of  human 
contrivances  to  the  adaptations  of  nature  can  only  warrant 
the  conclusion  that  both  proceed  from  similar  conditions,  and 
by  a  power  of  whose  efficiency  human  intelligence  and  phys¬ 
ical  laws  are  alike»  manifestations,  but  whose  nature  neither  hu¬ 
man  intelligence  comprehends  nor  physical  laws  can  disclose. 

Even  such  a  result,  which  is  all  that  the  unaided  physical 
sciences  can  compass,  is  not  altogether  barren  of  religious  in¬ 
terest,  though  it  is  made  so  by  the  materialist’s  attempt  to  de¬ 
fine  the  nature  of  power  by  assigning  to  physical  forces  an 
absolute  efficiency.  The  spiritualist,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we 
allow  his  psychological  proof  that  intelligence  stands  first  in 
the  absolute  order  of  existence,  and  is  a  free,  undetermined 
power,  is  logically  competent  to  interpret  the  order  of  nature 
as  a  designed  order.  Yet  to  him  physical  proofs  of  design 


NATURAL  THEOLOGY  AS  A  POSITIVE  SCIENCE. 


39 


have  little  or  no  value,  and  can  only  serve  as  obscure  and 
enigmatical  illustrations  of  what  is  far  more  clearly  apparent  in 
the  study  of  mind.  And  though  logically  competent  to  inter¬ 
pret  the  order  of  design,  if  his  spiritual  doctrine  be  true,  yet 
the  difficulties  which  we  first  mentioned,  and  waived  for  the 
nonce,  are  difficulties  as  insuperable  to  the  psychologist  as  to 
the  physicist.  He  gains  no  criterion  from  his  studies  by  which 
to  distinguish,  in  the  order  of  natural  phenomena,  which  are 
the  means  and  which  are  the  ends,  or  where  the  relation  of 
means  to  ends  is  to  be  found,  among  the  infinite  successions 
of  effects  which  are  also  causes,  and  of  causes  which  may,  for 
aught  he  can  know,  be  also  effects.  His  faith  in  final  causes 
is  not  a  guide  by  which  he  can  determine  what  the  final  causes 
are  by  which  he  believes  the  order  of  nature  to  be  determined. 

These  theoretical  objections  to  a  philosophy,  which  assigns 
physical  reasons  for  a  faith  in  final  causes,  are  by  no  means 
the  most  important  objections.  The  practical  influences  and 
effects  of  such  philosophizing  are,  we  believe,  more  obnoxious 
to  the  true  interests  of  religion  than  its  methods  are  to  the 
true  principles  of  philosophy,  and  fully  justify  an  examination 
of  its  arguments.  For  bad  arguments  may  go  for  nothing, 
while  good  ones  necessitate  their  conclusions;  and  we  think  it 
fortunate  for  the  purity  of  religious  truth  that  theologians 
have  succeeded  no  better  in  this  direction. 

Not  only  do  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  natural  theology  add 
nothing  to  the  grounds  of  a  faith  in  final  causes;  they,  in  effect, 
narrow  this  faith  to  ideas  which  scarcely  rise  in  dignity  above 
the  rank  of  superstitions.  If  to  believe  that  God  is  what  we 
can  think  him  to  be  is  blasphemy,  what  shall  we  call  the  at¬ 
tempt  to  discover  his  intentions  and  to  interpret  his  plans  in 
nature  ?  If  science  were  able  to  discover  a  much  closer  anal¬ 
ogy  than  it  does  between  the  adaptations  of  nature  and  the 
designs  of  human  contrivance,  would  it  be  any  less  derogatory 
to  the  dignity  of  the  Divine  nature  to  attempt  by  such  analo¬ 
gies  to  fathom  his  designs  and  plans,  or  to  suppose  that  what 
appears  as  a  designed  order  is  really  any  clew  to  the  purposes 
of  the  Almighty  ?  And  when,  even  transcending  this  degree  of 
presumption,  theology  would  fix  a  limit  to  the  researches  and 


40 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


hypotheses  of  science,  on  the  ground  that  they  tend  to  subvert 
religious  doctrines,  or  the  assumed  results  of  a  religious  phi¬ 
losophy,  we  are  warranted — nay,  constrained,  from  practical 
considerations — to  question  the  grounds  of  its  pretensions,  to 
allow  it  no  longer  to  shield  its  falseness  and  weakness  behind 
the  dignity  and  worth  of  the  interests  to  which  it  is  falsely 
dedicated.  It  is  from  the  illegitimate  pretensions  of  natural 
theology  that  the  figment  of  a  conflict  between  science  and  re¬ 
ligion  has  arisen ;  and  the  efforts  of  religious  thinkers  to  coun¬ 
teract  the  supposed  atheistical  tendencies  of  science,  and  to 
give  a  religious  interpretation  to  its  facts,  have  only  served  to 
deepen  the  false  impression  that  such  a  conflict  actually  ex¬ 
ists,  so  that  revolutions  in  scientific  theories  have  been  made  to 
appear  in  the  character  of  refutations  of  religious  doctrines. 

That  there  is  a  fundamental  distinction  between  the  natures 
of  scientific  and  religious  ideas  ought  never  to  be  doubted; 
but  that  contradiction  can  arise,  except  between  religious  and 
superstitious  ideas,  ought  not  for  a  moment  to  be  admitted. 
Progress  in  science  is  really  a  progress  in  religious  truth,  not 
because  any  new  reasons  are  discovered  for  the  doctrines  of 
religion,  but  because  advancement  in  knowledge  frees  us  from 
the  errors  both  of  ignorance  and  of  superstition,  exposing  the 
mistakes  of  a  false  religious  philosophy,  as  well  as  those  of  a 
false  science.  If  the  teachings  of  natural  theology  are  liable 
to  be  refuted  or  corrected  by  progress  in  knowledge,  it  is  legit¬ 
imate  to  suppose,  not  that  science  is  irreligious,  but  that  these 
teachings  are  superstitious ;  and  whatever  evils  result  from  the 
discoveries  of  science  are  attributable  to  the  rashness  of  the  theo¬ 
logian,  and  not  to  the  supposed  irreligious  tendencies  of  science. 
When  a  proof  of  special  design  is  invalidated  by  the  discovery 
that  a  particular  effect  in  the  operations  of  nature,  which  pre¬ 
viously  appeared  to  result  from  a  special  constitution  and  ad¬ 
justment  of  certain  forces,  is  really  a  consequent  of  the  general 
properties  of  matter, — when,  for  example,  the  laws  of  plan¬ 
etary  motion  were  shown  to  result  from  the  law  of  universal 
gravitation,  and  the  mathematical  plan  of  the  solar  system  was 
seen  to  be  a  consequent  of  a  single  universal  principle, — the 
harm,  if  there  be  any,  results  from  the  theologian’s  mistakes, 


NATURAL  THEOLOGY  AS  A  POSITLVE  SCIENCE. 


41 


and  not  from  the  corrections  of  science.  He  should  refrain  from 
attributing  any  special  plan  or  purpose  to  the  creation,  if  he 
would  find  in  science  a  constant  support  to  religious  truth. 
But  this  abstinence  does  not  involve  a  withdrawal  of  the  mind 
from  the  proper  religious  interests  of  natural  science,  nor 
weaken  a  legitimate  faith  in  final  causes.  Even  the  New¬ 
tonian  mechanism  of  the  heavens,  simple,  primordial,  and 
necessary  as  it  seems,  still  ' discloses  to  the  devout  mind  evi¬ 
dence  of  a  wisdom  unfathomable,  and  of  a  design  which  tran¬ 
scends  interpretation;  and  when,  in  the  more  complicated  order 
of  organic  life,  surprising  and  beautiful  adaptations  inspire  in 
the  naturalist  the  conviction  that  purpose  and  intelligence  are 
manifested  in  them, — that  they  spring  from  a  nature  akin  to  the 
devising  power  of  his  own  mind, — there  is  nothing  in  science 
or  philosophy  which  can  legitimately  rebuke  his  enthusiasm, — 
nothing,  unless  it  be  the  dogmatism  which  would  presumptu¬ 
ously  interpret  as  science  what  is  only  manifest  to  faith,  or 
would  require  of  faith  that  it  shall  justify  itself  by  proofs. 

The  progress  of  science  has  indeed  been  a  progress  in  relig¬ 
ious  truth,  but  in  spite  of  false  theology,  and  in  a  way  which 
narrow  theologians  have  constantly  opposed.  It  has  defined 
with  greater  and  greater  distinctness  the  boundary  between 
what  can  be  discovered  and  what  cannot.  It  has  purified  re¬ 
ligious  truth  by  turning  back  the  moral  consciousness  to  dis¬ 
cover  clearly  in  itself  what  it  had  obscurely  divined  from  its 
own  interpretations  of  nature.  It  has  impressed  on  the  mind 
of  the  cautious  inquirer  the  futility,  as  well  as  the  irreverence, 
of  attempting  a  philosophy  which  can  at  best  be  but  a  finer 
sort  of  superstition,  a  real  limitation  to  our  conceptions  of  final 
causes,  while  apparently  an  extension  of  them. 

But  instead  of  learning  these  lessons  from  the  experience 
of  repeated  failures,  theologians  have  constantly  opposed  new 
hypotheses  in  science,  until  proof  has  compelled  a  tardy  assent, 
and  even  then  they  have  retreated  to  other  regions  of  science, 
as  if  these  were  the  only  refuge  of  a  persecuted  faith. 

Humility  and  cautiousness,  and  that  suspension  of  judgment 
in  matters  about  which  we  really  know  so  little,  which  a  recent 
theological  writer  has  recommended,  in  view  of  the  pending 


42 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


controversy  on  the  origin  of  organic  species  and  adaptations, 
are  virtues,  which,  had  they  been  generally  cultivated  by  theo¬ 
logians,  would  have  rendered  this  controversy  harmless  at  least, 
if  not  unnecessary. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER* 


Why  the  inductive  and  mathematical  sciences,  after  their 
first  rapid  development  at  the  culmination  of  Greek  civiliza¬ 
tion,  advanced  so  slowly  for  two  thousand  years, — and  why  in 
the  following  two  hundred  years  a  knowledge  of  natural  and 
mathematical  science  has  accumulated,  which  so  vastly  exceeds 
all  that  was  previously  known  that  these  sciences  may  be  justly 
regarded  as  the  products  of  our  own  times, — are  questions 
which  have  interested  the  modern  philosopher  not  less  t^ian 
the  objects  with  which  these  sciences  are  more  immediately 
conversant.  Was  it  in  the  employment  of  a  new  method  of 
research,  or  in  the  exercise  of  greater  virtue  in  the  use  of  old 
methods,  that  this  singular  modern  phenomenon  had  its  ori¬ 
gin  ?  Was  the  long  period  one  of  arrested  development,  and 
is  the  modern  era  one  of  a  normal  growth  ?  or  should  we  as¬ 
cribe  the  characteristics  of  both  periods  to  so-called  historical 
accidents, — to  the  influence  of  conjunctions  in  circumstances 
of  which  no  explanation  is  possible,  save  in  the  omnipotence 
and  wisdom  of  a  guiding  Providence  ? 

The  explanation  which  has  become  commonplace,  that  the 
ancients  employed  deduction  chiefly  in  their  scientific  inqui¬ 
ries,  while  the  moderns  employ  induction,  proves  to  be  too 
narrow,  and  fails  upon  close  examination  to  point  with  suffi¬ 
cient  distinctness  the  contrast  that  is  evident  between  ancient 
and  modern  scientific  doctrines  and  inquiries.  For  all  knowl¬ 
edge  is  founded  on  observation,  and  proceeds  from  this  by  anal- 
i  ysis  and  synthesis,  by  synthesis  and  analysis,  by  induction  and 
deduction,  and  if  possible  by  verification,  or  by  new  appeals  to 


*  From  the  North  American  Review,  April,  1865. 


44 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


observation  under  the  guidance  of  deduction, — by  steps  which 
are  indeed  correlative  parts  of  one  method ;  and  the  ancient 
sciences  afford  examples  of  every  one  of  these  methods,  or  parts 
of  the  one  complete  method,  which  have  been  generalized  from 
the  examples  of  science. 

A  failure  to  employ  or  to  employ  adequately  any  one  of 
these  partial  methods,  an  imperfection  in  the  arts  and  re¬ 
sources  of  observation  and  experiment,  carelessness  in  observa¬ 
tion,  neglect  of  relevant  facts,  vagueness  and  carelessness  in 
reasoning,  and  the  failure  to  draw  the  consequences  of  theorj 
and  test  them  by  appeal  to  experiment  and  observation, — these 
are  the  faults  which  cause  all  failures  to  ascertain  truth, 
whether  among  the  ancients  or  the  moderns;  but  this  statement 
does  not  explain  why  the  modern  is  possessed  of  a  greater 
virtue,  and  by  what  means  he  attained  to  his  superiority. 
Much  less  does  it  explain  the  sudden  growth  of  science  in 
recent  times. 

The  attempt  to  discover  the  explanation  of  this  phenome¬ 
non  in  the  antithesis  of  “facts”  and  “theories”  or  “facts”  and 
“ideas,”— in  the  neglect  among  the  ancients  of  the  former,  and 
their  too  exclusive  attention  to  the  latter, — proves  also  to  be 
too  narrow,  as  well  as  open  to  the  charge  of  vagueness.  For, 
in  the  first  place,  the  antithesis  is  not  complete.  Facts  and  the¬ 
ories  are  not  co-ordinate  species.  Theories,  if  true,  are  facts, — 
a  particular  class  of  facts  indeed,  generally  complex  ones,  but 
still  facts.  Facts,  on  the  other  hand,  even  in  the  narrowest 
signification  of  the  word,  if  they  be  at  all  complex,  and  if  a 
logical  connection  subsists  between  their  constituents,  have  all 
the  positive  attributes  of  theories. 

Nevertheless,  this  distinction,  however  inadequate  it  maybe 
to  explain  the  source  of  true  method  in  science,  is  well  found¬ 
ed,  and  connotes  an  important  character  in  true  method.  A 
fact  is  a  proposition  of  which  the  verification  by  an  appeal  to 
the  primary  sources  of  our  knowledge  or  to  experience  is 
direct  and  simple.  A  theory,  on  the  other  hand,  if  true,  has 
all  the  characteristics  of  a  fact,  except  that  its  verification  is 
possible  only  by  indirect,  remote,  and  difficult  means.  To  con¬ 
vert  theories  into  facts  is  to  add  simple  verification ,  and  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


45 


theory  thus  acquires  the  full  characteristics  of  a  fact.  When 
Pascal  caused  the  Torricellian  tube  to  be  carried  up  the  Puy 
de  Dome,  and  thus  showed  that  the  mercurial  column  was  sus¬ 
tained  by  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere,  he  brought  the  theory 
of  atmospheric  pressure  nearly  down  to  the  level  of  a  fact  of 
observation.  But  even  in  this  most  remarkable  instance  of  sci¬ 
entific  discovery  theory  was  not  wholly  reduced  to  fact,  since 
the  verification,  though  easy,  was  not  entirely  simple,  and  was 
incomplete  until  further  observations  showed  that  the  quantity 
of  the  fall  in  the  Torricellian  tube  agreed  with  deductions  from 
the  combined  theories  of  atmospherical  pressure  and  elasticity. 
In  the  same  way  the  theory  of  universal  gravitation  fails  to  be¬ 
come  a  fact  in  the  proper  sense  of  this  word,  however  complete 
its  verification,  because  this  verification  is  not  simple  and  direct, 
or  through  the  immediate  activity  of  our  perceptive  powers. 

Modern  science  deals  then  no  less  with  theories  than  with 
facts,  but  always  as  much  as  possible  with  the  verification  of 
theories, — if  not  to  make  them  facts  by  simple  verification 
through  experiment  and  observation,  at  least  to  prove  their 
truth  by  indirect  verification. 

The  distinction  of  fact  and  theory  thus  yields  an  important 
principle,  of  which  M.  Comte  and  his  followers  have  made 
much  account.  It  is  in  the  employment  ,  of  verification,  they 
say,  and  in  the  possibility  of  it,  that  the  superiority  of  modern 
inductive  research  consists ;  and  it  is  because  the  ancients  did 
not,  or  could  not,  verify  their  theories,  that  they  made  such 
insignificant  progress  in  science.  It  is  indisputable  that  .verifi¬ 
cation  is  essential  to  the  completeness  of  scientific  method ;  but 
there  is  still  room  for  debate  as  to  what  constitutes  verification 
in  the  various  departments  of  philosophical  inquiry.  So  long 
as  the  philosophy  of  method  fails  to  give  a  complete  inventory 
of  our  primary  sources  of  knowledge,  and  cannot  decide  au¬ 
thoritatively  what  are  the  origins  of  first  truths,  or  the  truths 
of  observation,  so  long  will  it  remain  uncertain  what  is  a  legiti¬ 
mate  appeal  to  observation,  or  what  is  a  real  verification.  The 
Platonists  or  the  rationalists  may  equally  with  the  empiricists 
claim  verification  for  their  theories ;  for  do  they  not  appeal  to 
the  reason  for  confirmation  of  deductions  from  their  theories, 


46 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


which  they  regard  as  founded  on  observation  of  what  the  rea 
son  reveals  to  them  ? 

The  positivists’  principle  of  verification  comes,  then,  only  to 
this, — that,  inasmuch  as  mankind  are  nearly  unanimous  about 
the  testimony  and  trustworthiness  of  their  senses,  but  are  di¬ 
vided  about  the  validity  of  all  other  kinds  of  authority,  which 
they  in  a  word  call  the  reason,  or  internal  sense,  therefore  verifi¬ 
cation  by  the  senses  produces  absolute  conviction,  while  verifi¬ 
cation  by  the  reason  settles  nothing,  but  is  liable  to  the  same 
uncertainty  which  attends  the  primary  appeals  to  this  authority 
for  the  data  of  speculative  knowledge. 

But  not  only  does  the  so-called  metaphysical  philosophy  em¬ 
ploy  a  species  of  verification  by  appealing  to  the  testimony  of 
reason,  consciousness,  or  internal  sense ;  but  the  ancient  phys¬ 
ical  sciences  afford  examples  of  the  confirmation  of  theory  by 
observation  proper.  The  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy  was 
an  instance  of  the  employment  of  every  one  of  the  partial  steps 
of  true  method ;  and  the  theory  of  epicycles  not  only  sought  to 
represent  the  facts  of  observation,  but  also  by  the  prediction  of 
astronomical  phenomena  to  verify  the  truth  of  its  representa¬ 
tion.  Modern  astronomy  does  not  proceed  otherwise,  except 
that  its  theories  represent  a  much  greater  number  of  facts  of 
observation,  and  are  confirmed  by  much  more  efficient  experi¬ 
mental  tests. 

The  difference,  then,  between  ancient  and  modern  science  is 
not  truly  characterized  by  any  of  the  several  explanations  which 
have  been  proposed.  The  explanation,  however,  which,  in  our 
opinion,  comes  nearest  to  the  true  solution,  and  yet  fails  to  des¬ 
ignate  the  real  point  of  difference,  is  that  which  the  positivists 
find  in  the  distinction  between  “objective  method”  and  “sub¬ 
jective  method.”  The  objective  method  is  verification  by 
sensuous  tests,  tests  of  sensible  experience, — a  deduction  from 
theory  of  consequences,  of  which  we  may  have  sensible  experi¬ 
ences  if  they  be  true.  The  subjective  method,  on  the  other 
hand,  appeals  to  the  tests  of  internal  evidence,  tests  of  reason, 
and  the  data  of  self-consciousness.  But  whatever  be  the  origin 
of  the  theories  of  science,  whether  from  a  systematic  examina¬ 
tion  of  empirical  facts  by  conscious  induction,  or  from  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


4? 


natural  biases  of  the  mind,  the  so-called  intuitions  of  reason, 
in  other  words  what  seems  probable  without  a  distinct  survey 
of  our  experiences,— whatever  the  origin,  real  or  ideal,  the  value 
of  these  theories  can  only  be  tested,  say  the  positivists,  by  an 
appeal  to  sensible  experience,  by  deductions  from  them  of  con¬ 
sequences  which  we  can  confirm  by  the  undoubted  testimony 
of  the  senses.  Thus,  while  ideal  or  transcendental  elements 
are  admitted  into  scientific  researches,  though  in  themselves 
insusceptible  of  simple  verification,  they  must  still  show  creden 
tials  from  the  senses,  either  by  affording  from  themselves  con 
sequences  capable  of  sensuous  verification,  or  by  yielding  such 
consequences  in  conjunction  with  ideas  which  by  themselves 
are  verifiable. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true,  that  one  of  the  leading  traits  of 
modern  scientific  research  is  this  reduction  of  ideas  to  the  tests 
of  experience.  The  systematic  development  of  ideas  through 
induction  from  the  first  and  simplest  facts  of  observation,  is  by 
no  means  so  obvious  a  characteristic.  Inductions  are  still  per¬ 
formed  for  the  most  part  unconsciously  and  unsystematically. 
Ideas  are  developed  by  the  sagacity  of  the  expert,  rather  than 
by  the  systematic  procedures  of  the  philosopher.  But  when 
and  however  ideas  are  developed  science  cares  nothing,  for  it 
is  only  by  subsequent  tests  of  sensible  experience  that  ideas 
are  admitted  into  the  pandects  of  science. 

It  is  of  no  consequence  to  scientific  astronomy  whence  the 
theory  of  gravitation  arose;  whether  as  an  induction  from  the 
theories  of  attractions  and  the  law  of  radiations,  or  from  the 
rational  simplicity  of  this  law  itself,  as  the  most  natural  suppo¬ 
sition  which  could  be  made.  Science  asks  no  questions  about 
the  ontological  pedigree  or  a  priori  character  of  a  theory,  but 
is  content  to  judge  it  by  its  performance;  and  it  is  thus  that  a 
knowledge  of  nature,  having  all  the  certainty  which  the  senses 
are  competent  to  inspire,  has  been  attained, — a  knowledge 
which  maintains  a  strict  neutrality  toward  all  philosophical 
systems,  and  concerns  itself  not  at  all  with  the  genesis  or  a 
priori  grounds  of  ideas. 

This  mode  of  philosophizing  is  not,  however,  exclusively 
found  in  modern  scientific  research.  Ptolemy  claimed  for  his 


48 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DLSCUSSIONS. 


epicycles  only  that  “they  saved  the  appearances;”  and  he 
might  have  said,  with  as  much  propriety  as  Newton,  “  Hypothe¬ 
ses  non  Jingo”  for  it  was  the  aim  of  his  research  to  represent 
abstractly,  and  by  the  most  general  formulas,  the  characteris¬ 
tics  of  the  movements  of  the  planets, — an  aim  which  modern 
astronomy,  with  a  much  simpler  hypothesis,  and  with  immense¬ 
ly  increased  facilities,  still  pursues. 

We  find,  therefore,  that  while  moderns  follow  a  true  method 
of  investigation  with  greater  facilities  and  greater  fidelity  than 
the  ancients,  and  with  a  clearer  apprehension  of  its  elements 
and  conditions,  yet  that  no  new  discoveries  in  method  have 
been  made,  and  no  general  sources  of  truth  have  been  pointed 
out,  which  were  not  patent  and  known  to  the  ancients;  and  we 
have  so  far  failed  to  discover  any  solution  to  the  problem  with 
which  we  began.  We  have  seen  that  it  was  not  by  the  em¬ 
ployment  of  a  new  method  of  research,  but  in  the  exercise  of 
greater  virtue  in  the  use  of  old  methods,  that  modern  scientific 
researches  have  succeeded.  But  whence  this  greater  virtue  ? 
What  vivifying,  energizing  influence  awakened  the  sixteenth 
century  to  the  movement,  which  has  continued  down  to  the 
present  day  to  engross,  and  even  to  create,  the  energies  of 
philosophic  thought  in  the  study  of  natural  phenomena?  Ob¬ 
viously  some  interest  was  awakened,  which  had  before  been 
powerless,  or  had  influenced  only  men  of  rare  and  extraordi¬ 
nary  genius,  or  else  some  opposing  interest  had  ceased  to  exer¬ 
cise  a  preponderating  influence. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  new  order  of  inquiries.  We  ask 
no  longer  what  are  the  differences  of  method  between  ancient 
and  modern  scientific  researches,  but  we  seek  the  difference  in 
the  motives  which  actuated  the  philosophic  inquiries  of  the  two 
periods.  We  seek  for  the  interests  which  in  modern  times 
have  so  powerfully  drawn  men  of  all  orders  of  intelligence  to 
the  pursuit  of  science,  and  to  an  observance  of  the  conditions 
requisite  for  its  successful  prosecution.  We  do  not  inquire 
what  course  has  led  to  successful  answers  in  science,  but  what 
motives  have  prompted  the  pertinent  questions. 

In  place  of  the  positivists’  phraseology,  that  the  ancients 
followed  “the  subjective  method,”  or  appealed  for  the  verifica- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


49 


tion  of  their  theories  to  natural  beliefs,  while  the  moderns  fol¬ 
low  “the  objective  method,”  or  appeal  to  new  and  independent 
experimental  evidence, — if  we  substitute  the  word  “motive” 
for  “method,”  we  have  the  terms  of  one  of  the  conclusions  on 
which  we  wish  to  insist.  But  these  require  explanation. 

By  a  subjective  motive  we  mean  one  having  its  origin  in 
natural  universal  human  interests  and  emotions,  which  existed 
before  philosophy  was  born,  which  continue  to  exist  in  the 
maturity  of  philosophy,  and  determine  the  character  of  an 
important  and  by  no  means  defunct  order  of  human  specula 
tions.  By  an  objective  motive  we  mean  one  having  an  empir¬ 
ical  origin,  arising  in  the  course  of  an  inquiry;  springing  from 
interests  which  are  defined  by  what  we  already  know,  and  no* 
by  what  we  have  always  felt, — interests  which  depend  on  ac 
quired  knowledge,  and  not  on  natural  desires  and  emotions 
Among  the  latter  we  must  include  the  natural  desire  foi 
knowledge,  or  the  primitive,  undisciplined  sentiment  of  curi¬ 
osity.  This  becomes  an  objective  motive  when  it  ceases 
to  be  associated  with  our  fears,  our  respects,  our  aspirations. 
— our  emotional  nature;  when  it  ceases  to  prompt  questions 
as  to  what  relates  to  our  personal  destiny,  our  ambitions,  our 
moral  worth;  when  it  ceases  to  have  man,  his  personal  and 
social  nature,  as  its  central  and  controlling  objects.  A  curi¬ 
osity  which  is  determined  chiefly  or  solely  by  the  felt  imperfec¬ 
tions  of  knowledge  as  such,  and  without  reference  to  the  uses 
this  knowledge  may  subserve,  is  prompted  by  what  we  call  an 
objective  motive. 

A  spirit  of  inquiry  which  is  freed  from  the  influence  of  our 
active  powers,  and  the  interests  that  gave  birth  to  theological 
and  metaphysical  philosophies, — which  yields  passively  and 
easily  to  the  direction  of  objective  motives,  to  the  felt  imperfec¬ 
tions  of  knowledge  as  such, — is  necessarily,  at  all  times,  a 
weak  feeling;  and  before  a  body  of  systematic,  well-digested, 
and  well-ascertained  scientific  truth  had  been  generated,  could 
hardly  have  had  any  persistent  influence  on  the  direction  of 
inquiry. 

The  motives  to  theological  and  metaphysical  speculation 
exist  from  the  beginning  of  civilized  human  life  in  the  active 


3 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


5° 

emotional  nature  of  man.  Curiosity  as  a  love  of  the  marvel¬ 
ous,  or  as  a  iove  of  facts, — new  facts,  prized  because  they  are 
new  and  stimulating, — also  dates  back  of  civilized  life.  These 
motives  find  play  in  human  nature,  as  it  emerges  from  a  semi¬ 
animal  state ;  but  they  also  persist  and  determine  the  growth 
of  the  human  mind  in  its  most  advanced  development. 

The  questions  of  philosophy  proper  are  human  desires  and 
fears  and  aspirations — human  emotions — taking  an  intel¬ 
lectual  form.  Science  follows,  but  does  not  supersede,  this  phi¬ 
losophy.  The  three  phases  which  the  positivists  assign  to  the 
development  of  the  human  mind — the  Theological,  the  Met¬ 
aphysical,  and  the  Positive  or  Scientific — are  not  in  reality 
successive,  except  in  their  beginnings.  They  co-exist  in  all  the 
highest  developments  of  civilization  and  mental  activity.  They' 
co-existed  in  the  golden  age  of  Greek  civilization,  in  the  in¬ 
tense  mental  activity  of  the  Middle  Ages.  They  move  on  to¬ 
gether  in  this  marvelous  modern  era.  But  until  this  latest 
epoch  positive  science  was  always  the  inferior  philosophy, — 
hardly  a  distinct  philosophy  at  all, — not  yet  bom.  But  at  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  era  its  gestation  was  completed.  A 
body  of  knowledge  existed,  sufficiently  extensive,  coherent,  and 
varied,  to  bear  within  it  a  life  of  its  own, — an  independent 
life, — which  was  able  to  collect  to  itself,  by  its  own  determina¬ 
tions,  the  materials  of  a  continued,  new,  and  ever-increasing 
mental  activity, — an  activity  determined  solely  by  an  objective 
curiosity,  or  by  curiosity  in  its  purest,  fullest,  and  highest  en¬ 
ergy. 

We  are  probably  indebted  to  the  few  men  of  scientific  genius 
who  lived  during  the  slow  advancement  of  modern  civilization 
for  the  foundation  of  this  culture, — for  the  accumulation  of 
the  knowledge  requisite  for  this  subsequent  growth.  These 
men  were  doubtless,  for  the  most  part,  the  products  of  their 
own  time  and  civilization,  as  indeed  all  great  men  have  been, 
but  still  originators,  by  concentrating  and  making  productive 
the  energies,  tendencies,  and  knowledges  which,  but  for  them, 
would  have  remained  inert  and  unfruitful.  It  is  to  such  men, 
born  at  long  intervals  in  the  slow  progress  of  civilization,  each 
carrying  forward  a  little  the  work  of, his  predecessor,  that  we 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


5* 


'probably  owe  our  modern  science,  rather  than  to  the  influence 
of  any  single  mind,  like  Bacon,  who  was,  like  his  predecessors, 
but  the  lens  which  collected  the  light  of  his  times, — who 
prophesied  rather  than  inaugurated  the  new  era.  And  we  owe 
science  to  the  combined  energies  of  individual  men  of  genius, 
rather  than  to  any  tendency  to  progress  inherent  in  civilization. 

We  find,  then,  the  explanation  of  the  modern  development 
of  science  in  the  accumulation  of  a  body  of  certified  knowl¬ 
edge,  sufficiently  extensive  to  engage  and  discipline  a  rational 
scientific  curiosity,  and  stimulate  it  to  act  independently  of 
other  motives.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  other  motives  have 
influenced  this  development,  and  especially  that  motives  of 
material  utility  have  had  a  powerful  effect  in  stimulating 
inquiry.  Ancient  schools  of  philosophy  despised  narrow 
material  utilities,  the  servile  arts,  and  sought  no  instruction  in 
what  moderns  dignify  by  the  name  of  useful  arts ;  but  modern 

science  finds  in  the  requirements  of  the  material  arts  the  safest 

/ 

guide  to  exact  knowledge.  A  theory  which  is  utilized  receives 
the  highest  possible  certificate  of  truth.  Navigation  by  the  aid 
of  astronomical  tables,  the  magnetic  telegraph,  the  innumer¬ 
able  utilities  of  mechanical  and  chemical  science,  are  constant 
and  perfect  tests  of  scientific  theories,  and  afford  the  standard 
of  certitude,  which  science  has  been  able  to  apply  so  exten¬ 
sively  in  its  interpretations  of  natural  phenomena. 

But  the  motives  proper  to  science,  though  purified  by  their 
dissociation  from  the  subjective  determinations  and  tendencies, 
which  gave  an  anthropomorphic  and  teleological  character  to 
ancient  views  of  nature,  are  not  the  only  legitimate  motives  to 
philosophical  inquiry.  There  is  another  curiosity  purified  by 
its  association  with  the  nobler  sentiments, — with  wonder,  ad¬ 
miration,  veneration, — and  with  the  interests  of  our  moral  and 
aesthetical  natures.  This  curiosity  is  the  motive  to  philosophy 
proper.  “Wonder  is  a  highly  philosophical  affection,”  says 
Plato’s  Socrates;  “indeed,  there  is  no  other  principle  of  philos¬ 
ophy  but  this.” 

Curiosity  determined  by  natural  sentiments  and  emotions — 
subjective  curiosity — is  the  cause  of  a  culture  co-extensive  with 
civilization,  long  preceding  the  growth  of  science,  and  constitut- 


52 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


ing  all  that  is  peculiar  to  civilized  life  except  the  material  arts, 
However  meanly  the  conclusions  of  theological  and  metaphys¬ 
ical  speculations  may  appear,  when  tried  by  the  objective  stand¬ 
ard  of  science,  they  too  have  their  superiorities,  by  the  test  of 
which  science  becomes  in  turn  insignificant.  Unverified  con 
elusions,  vague  ideas,  crude  fancies,  they  may  be,  but  they  cer¬ 
tainly  are  the  products  of  activities  which  constitute  more  of 
human  happiness  and  human  worth  than  the  narrow  material 
standards  of  science  have  been  able  to  measure. 

Philosophy  proper  should  be  classed  with  the  Religions  and 
with  the  Fine  Arts,  and  estimated  rather  by  the  dignity  of  its 
motives,  and  the  value  it  directs  us  to,  than  by  the  value  of  its 
own  attainments.  To  condemn  this  pursuit  because  it  fails  to 
accomplish  what  science  does,  would  be  to  condemn  that  which 
has  formed  in  human  nature  habits,  ideas,  and  associations  on 
which  all  that  is  best  in  us  depends, — would  warrant  the  con¬ 
demnation  of  science  itself,  since  science  scarcely  existed  at  all 
for  two  thousand  years  of  civilization,  and  represented  as  a  dis¬ 
tinct  department  during  this  period  only  the  interests  of  the 
servile  arts.  The  objects  of  Philosophy  were  those  which  the 
religious  ideas  and  emotions  of  man  presented  to  his  specula¬ 
tive  curiosity.  These  motives,  though  proper  to  Philosophy, 
also  gave  direction  to  inquiries  in  Physics  and  Astronomy. 
The  Fine  Arts  sprang  from  the  same  interests,  and  persisted 
through  the  conservative  power  of  religious  interests  in  a  de¬ 
velopment  to  which  the  modern  world  offers  no  parallel.  We 
have  no  styles  in  Art,  no  persistently  pursued  efforts  for  per¬ 
fection  in  beauty,  because  we  are  not  held  to  the  conditions  of 
this  perfection  by  the  religious  motives  which  directed  ancient 
Art.  The  growth  of  Theology  and  Metaphysics  is  less  vigor¬ 
ous  now  for  the  same  reason.  Theology  was  Philosophy  de¬ 
veloped  in  the  interests  of  Religion  or  of  religious  feeling,  and 
Metaphysics  was  cultivated  in  the  interests  of  Theology.  Both 
aimed  at  truth ;  both  were  determined  by  the  same  love  of  sim¬ 
plicity  and  unity  in  knowledge,  which  determines  all  search 
after  truth ;  but  neither  cared  for  simple  truth  alone.  When 
pursued  for  the  truth  of  fact  alone,  they  both  degenerate  into 
affectation  and  emptiness.  We  do  not  omit  the  sceptical  phi- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


53 


losophies  of  antiquity  from  this  description,  because  they  were 
not  held  independently  of  the  religious  interests  of  the  orthodox 
philosophy,  but  in  opposition  to  them  or  in  criticism  of  them. 

Theology  and  Metaphysics  failed  to  apply  a  correct  method 
and  to  arrive  at  certain  results,  not  because  philosophers  were 
ignorant  of  method,  but  because  the  object-matters  of  their  re¬ 
search  were  not  questions  of  sensible  experience, — were  not 
mere  questions  of  facts  of  which  the  mind  is  the  passive  recip¬ 
ient  through  the  senses.  Their  aim  was  to  prove  truth,  not  to 
discover  it, — to  reduce  opinions  and  ideas  which  had  the  war¬ 
rant  of  religious  associations  to  the  simplicity  and  consistency 
of  truth;  and  when  ideas  and  opinions  have  this  warrant,  it 
does  not  require  the  verification  of  the  senses  to  make  the  con¬ 
clusions  of  Philosophy  acceptable  and  true  to  the  religious  in¬ 
stincts.  To  educe  Conclusions  acceptable  to  these  instincts  and 
in  opposition  to  no  known  truth, — in  other  words,  to  free  relig¬ 
ious  beliefs  from  contradictions  and  to  give  them  consistency, — 
was  the  aspiration  and  the  devoted  service  of  Philosophy. 

Philosophy  has  in  fact  three  phases  instead  of  two.  For 
as  Theology  was  a  speculation  prosecuted  in  the  interest  of  re¬ 
ligious  feeling,  and  Metaphysics  a  speculation  in  defense  or 
criticism  of  the  doctrines  of  Theology,  so  Criticism  or  Critical 
Philosophy  is  an  examination  of  metaphysical  conclusions. 
But  the  latter  is  properly,  in  its  motives,  a  scientific  specula¬ 
tion.  Such  is  the  true  logical  order  of  Philosophy  proper, 
though  all  these  phases  may  and  do  co-exist  in  history. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  many  modern  thinkers,  besides  the  so- 
called  Positivists,  or  avowed  followers  of  M.  Comte,  that  sci¬ 
ence,  as  we  have  defined  it,  or  truth  pursued  simply  in  the  in¬ 
terests  of  a  rational  curiosity,  and  for  the  mental  discipline  and 
the  material  utilities  of  its  processes  and  conclusions,  will  here¬ 
after  occupy  more  and  more  the  attention  of  mankind,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  older  philosophy.  It  is  also  the  opinion  of 
these  thinkers,  that  this  is  not  to  be  regretted,  but  rather  wel¬ 
comed  as  a  step  forward  in  the  advancement  of  human  welfare 
and  civilization ;  that  the  pursuit  of  science  and  its  utilities  is 
capable  of  inspiring  as  great  and  earnest  a  devotion  as  those 
which  religious  interests  have  inspired,  and  which  have  hitherto 


54 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


determined  the  destinies  of  mankind  and  given  form  to  human 
thought,  and  one  vastly  more  beneficent. 

Whatever  foundations  there  are  for  these  opinions,  it  is  cer 
tain  that  the  claims  of  science,  as  a  new  power  in  the  world,  to 
the  regard  of  thoughtful  and  earnest  men,  are  receiving  a  re¬ 
newed  and  more  candid  attention.  Through  its  recent  prog¬ 
ress,  many  of  the  questions  which  have  hitherto  remained  in 
the  arena  of  metaphysical  disputation  are  brought  forward  in 
new  forms  and  under  new  auspices.  Scientific  investigations 
promise  to  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  subjects  which  have  inter¬ 
ested  mankind  since  the  beginning  of  speculation, — subjects 
related  to  universal  human  interests.  History,  society,  laws, 
and  morality, — all  are  claimed  as  topics  with  which  scientific 
methods  are  competent  to  deal.  Scientific  solutions  are  pro¬ 
posed  to  all  the  questions  of  philosophy  which  scientific  illumi¬ 
nation  may  not  show  to  have  their  origin  in  metaphysical  hal¬ 
lucination. 

Prominent  in  the  ranks  of  the  new  school  stands  Mr.  Her¬ 
bert  Spencer,  whose  versatility  has  already  given  to  the  world 
many  ingenious  and  original  essays  in  this  new  philosophy, 
and  whose  aspiring  genius  projects  many  more,  which,  if  his 
strength  does  not  fail,  are  to  develop  the  capacities  of  a  scien¬ 
tific  method  in  dealing  with  all  the  problems  that  ought  legiti¬ 
mately  to  interest  the  human  mind. 

The  programme  of  his  future  labors  which  his  publishers 
have  advertised  might  dispose  a  prejudiced  critic  to  look  with 
suspicion  on  what  he  has  already  accomplished ;  but  the  fa¬ 
vorable  impression  which  his  works  have  made,  and  the  plaud¬ 
its  of  an  admiring  public,  demand  a  suspension  of  judgment; 
and  the  extravagance  of  his  pretensions  should  for  the  present 
be  credited  to  the  strength  of  his  enthusiasm. 

It  is  through  the  past  labors  of  an  author  that  we  must 
judge  of  his  qualifications  for  future  work,  and  the  complete¬ 
ness  of  his  preparation.  Mr.  Spencer’s  writings  evince  an  ex¬ 
tensive  knowledge  of  facts  political  and  scientific,  but  extensive 
rather  than  profound,  and  mainly  at  second  hand.  It  is  not,  of 
course,  to  be  expected  that  a  philosopher  will  be  an  original 
investigator  in  all  the  departments  of  knowledge  with  which 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


55 


he  is  obliged  to  have  dealings.  He  must  take  much  at  second 
hand.  But  original  investigations  in  some  department  of 
empirical  science  are  a  discipline  which  best  tests  and  develops 
even  a  philosopher’s  powers.  He  has  in  this  at  least  an  ex¬ 
perience  of  what  is  requisite  to  an  adequate  comprehension 
of  facts.  He  learns  how  to  make  knowledge  profitable  to  the 
ascertainment  of  new  truths, — an  art  in  which  the  modern 
natural  philosopher  excels.  By  new  truths  must  be  under¬ 
stood  such  as  are  not  implied  in  what  we  already  know,  or 
educible  from  what  is  patent  to  common  observation.  How¬ 
ever  skillfully  the  philosopher  may  apply  his  analytical  proc¬ 
esses  to  the  abstraction  of  the  truths  involved  in  patent  facts, 
the  utility  of  his  results  will  depend  not  so  much  on  their 
value  and  extent  as  mere  abstractions,  as  on  their  capacity  to 
enlarge  our  experience  by  bringing  to  notice  residual  phenom¬ 
ena,  and  making  us  observe  what  we  have  entirely  overlooked, 
or  search,  out  what  has  eluded  our  observation.  Such  is  the 
character  of  the  principles  of  modern  natural  philosophy, 
both  mathematical  and  physical.  They  are  rather  the  eyes 
with  which  nature  is  seen,  than  the  elements  and  constituents 
of  the  objects  discovered.  It  was  in  a  clear  apprehension 
of  this  value  in  the  principles  of  mathematical  and  experi¬ 
mental  science,  that  the  excellence  of  Newton’s  genius  con¬ 
sisted  ;  and  it  is  this  value  which  the  Positive  Philosophy  most 
prizes.  But  this  is  not  the  value  which  we  find  in  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer’s  speculations. 

Mr.  Spencer  is  not  a  positivist,  though  that  was  not  a  very 
culpable  mistake  which  confounded  his  speculations  with  the 
writings  of  this  school.  For  however  much  he  differs  from  the 
positivists  in  his  methods  and  opinions,  he  is  actuated  by  the 
same  confidence  in  the  capacities  of  a  scientific  method,  and 
by  the  same  disrespect  for  the  older  philosophies.  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer  applies  a  method  for  the  ascertainment  of  ultimate  truths, 
which  a  positivist  would  regard  as  correct  only  on  the  suppo¬ 
sition  that  the  materials  of  truth  have  all  been  collected,  and 
that  the  research  of  science  is  no  longer  for  the  enlargement 
of  our  experience  or  for  the  informing  of  the  mind.  Until 
these  conditions  be  realized,  the  positivist  regards  such  at 


56 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


tempts  as  Mr.  Spencer’s  as  not  only  faulty,  but  positively  per¬ 
nicious  and  misleading.  Nothing  justifies  the  development 
of  abstract  principles  in  science  but  their  utility  in  enlarging 
our  concrete  knowledge  of  nature.  The  ideas  on  which 
mathematical  Mechanics  and  the  Calculus  are  founded,  the 
morphological  ideas  of  Natural  History,  and  the  theories  of 
Chemistry  are  such  working  ideas, — finders,  not  merely  sum¬ 
maries  of  truth. 

But  before  examining  more  in  detail  Mr.  Spencer’s  method 
of  philosophizing,  it  will  be  useful  to  consider  his  career  and 
character  as  a  thinker  and  writer.  Born  in  Derby  in  1820,  he 
was  educated  by  his  father,  who  was  a  school-teacher  in  that 
town,  and  by  his  uncle,  a  clergyman  of  the  Established 
Church.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  entered  on  the  profes¬ 
sion  of  civil  engineering,  which  he  followed  for  eight  years. 
He  then  abandoned  this  pursuit  for  a  literary  career.  He  had 
already  published  in  a  scientific  journal  several  papers  on  pro¬ 
fessional  subjects,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  gave  an  ear¬ 
nest  of  his  tastes  for  political  speculation  in  a  newspaper 
article  on  “The  Proper  Sphere  of  Government.”  He  after¬ 
wards  became  a  writer  in  the  Economist,  and  in  1851  pub¬ 
lished  his  “Social  Statics,  or  the  Conditions  essential  to 
Human  Happiness  specified,  and  the  First  of  them  devel¬ 
oped.”  By  this  work  he  became  first  generally  known  to  the 
reading  public  in  America.  This  work  exhibits  the  traits 
which  characterize  all  Mr.  Spencer’s  subsequent  writings.  A 
constant  and  close  student  of  facts  both  political  and  scientific, 
with  the  practical  bent  of  the  English  radical  and  idealist, 
he  is  none  the  less  strongly  attracted  to  the  abstractions  of 
speculative  thought.  He  aims  at  the  same  time  at  system 
and  at  effect.  No  distract  idealist,  though  always  actuated 
by  that  uncontent  which  moves  revolutions  and  reforms,  he 
uses  abstractions  and  abstract  modes  of  thought  for  moral 
ends.  His  allegiance  to  his  speculative  and  his  practical  aims 
seems  sometimes  divided,  and  then  he  shows  a  tendency  to 
follow  out  the  consequences  of  theory,  and  to  trust  the  welfare 
of  mankind  to  its  omnipotent  care.  He  has  great  faith  in  the 
self-sufficingness  of  things.  The  very  elements  have  in  them 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER . 


57 


the  seeds  of  moral  perfectibility.  But  he  would  leave  out  of 
the  category  of  natural  agencies  in  politics  the  paternal  care 
of  the  rulers  of  mankind.  He  regards  with  lofty  scorn  that 
presumption  in  the  governing  classes  which  pretends  to  com¬ 
prehend  and  help  forward  the  inherent  progressiveness  of  the 
world.  Moral  idealism  colors  all  Mr.  Spencer’s  views,  both  in 
science  and  politics.  This  gains  him  a  popular  hearing,  es¬ 
pecially  with  the  youth  of  democratic  America.  But  Amer¬ 
ican  democracy  itself  sympathizes  with  English  radicalism  only 
as  the  rich  and  benevolent  sympathize  with  the  poor.  We 
wish  them  the  good  of  universal  suffrage.  We  are  studying 
how  to  remedy  the  evils  of  it.  To  us  this  boon  is  a  present 
fate,  mixed  of  good  and  evil, — a  thing  neither  to  seek  nor  to 
avoid,  but  of  which  we  must  make  the  best.  We  suffer  our 
legislators  to  exercise  that  absolute  tyranny  which  Mr.  Spencer 
proves  to  be  an  absolute  immorality, — a  compulsory  universal 
common-school  education, — without  a  murmur.  We  have  not 
even  suspected  its  immorality.  Some  of  us  regard  it  as  a  little 
overdone;  but  few  or  none  have  found  that  the  system  is 
radically  faulty,  though  it  be  at  variance  with  Mr.  Spencer’s 
moral  premises.  But  we  must  defer  the  consideration  of  the 
arguments  of  this  work,  for  we  are  at  present  only  concerned 
with  the  characteristics  of  the  writer. 

The  strong  tendency  to  speculative  and  abstract  modes  of 
thought  which  his  first  work  evinces  found  a  more  distinct 
utterance  in  the  author’s  “  Principles  of  Psychology,”  published 
four  years  later,  in  1855.  The  choice  of  .this  subject  seems  to 
have  been  determined  by  the  author’s  genius  for  the  kind  of 
thinking  to  which  this  subject  is  adapted,  rather  than  by  any 
special  training  in  its  literature.  Indeed,  this  work,  like  the 
“  Social  Statics,”  is  characterized  by  great  originality.  Con¬ 
strained  by  his  entire  sympathy  with  modern  movements  in 
thought  and  scientific  culture,  he  is  perforce  a  scientific  em¬ 
piricist,  though  his  peculiar  genius  would  have  found  a  more 
congenial  employment  in  scholastic  philosophy.  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer  believes  in  developments.  All  his  writings  are  develop¬ 
ments,  and  most  of  them  are  about  developments.  He  de¬ 
lights  in  “  evolutions  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogene- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


58 

ous,” — in  “  changes  from  an  indefinite  incoherent  homogeneity 
to  a  definite  coherent  heterogeneity,  through  continuous  differ¬ 
entiations  and  integrations.”  He  not  only  discovers  them  in 
all  the  objects  of  scientific  research,  but  he  rings  these  changes 
in  all  his  discourses  on  them.  Analysis  is  his  forte ,  and  devel¬ 
opments  are  foibles.  But  he  had  not  yet  in  his  “Principles  of 
Psychology  ”  fully  developed  these  foibles.  He  finds,  however, 
in  the  problems  of  Psychology  scope  for  his  analytical  powers. 
Like  all  writers  who  do  not  speak  from  the  urgency  of  con¬ 
viction  or  dissent,  he  is  an  eclectic.  He  aims  to  combine  in  his 
Psychology  what  is  true  in  empiricism  with  what  is  true  in 
metaphysics ;  and  he  had  special  reasons  for  this  course.  Mr. 
Spencer  is  here  no  longer  a  champion.  His  moral  convictions 
find  their  utterance  in  his  political  and  social  essays.  In  Phi¬ 
losophy  he  is  charmed  with  ideas,  and  with  his  power  to  un¬ 
ravel  them.  He  is  actuated  by  a  simple  love  of  truth,  and  he 
is  therefore  an  eclectic.  He  has  no  real  respect  for  ideas  or 
for  the  religious  grounds  of  metaphysics.  As  between  pure 
empiricism  and  religious  metaphysics  his  choice  would  be  un¬ 
hesitating.  He  would  choose  empiricism.  But  ideas  are  fine 
things  when  one  has  more  power  to  unfold  than  to  find  them ; 
and  they  are  still  found,  as  heretofore,  by  the  insights  of  scien¬ 
tific  sagacity  rather  than  by  any  method.  Pure  empiricism, 
however,  or  Positivism,  refuses  to  Psychology  any  place  in  the 
hierarchy  of  the  sciences.  How  then  can  Mr.  Spencer  get  the 
ideas  on  which  to  exercise  his  powers  ?  There  is  only  one 
course;  he  must  postulate  them.  Ideas  are  all  derived  from 
experience,  it  is  true ;  but  we  must  not  seek  in  actual  particu¬ 
lar  experiences  for  their  validity.  These  may  be,  and  probably 
are,  beyond  the  reach  of  resuscitation.  What  then  is  the  test 
of  truth  or  of  reality  in  the  grounds  of  any  idea  ?  “  The  in¬ 

conceivableness  of  its  negation,”  says  Mr.  Spencer;  and  so  he 
adopted  a  principle  from  metaphysics,  but  with  a  limitation. 
This  inconceivableness  results  from  the  discipline  of  experience. 
It  does  not  depend  on  any  plastic  power  of  the  mind  as  an 
original  nature,  determining  the  possibilities  of  experience  and 
thought,  but  it  is  determined  in  the  mind  by  invariable  experi¬ 
ences.  Those  orders  and  relationships  of  events  in  nature 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


59 


which  are  present  to  the  mind  from  its  first  determinations  to 
thought,  those  which  are  never  contradicted  in  experience,  de¬ 
termine  also  the  possibilities  of  thought;  and  in  turn  the  possi¬ 
bilities  of  thought  are  tests  of  invariable  experiences,  though 
the  particular  experiences  are  lost  in  oblivion.  In  other  words, 
the  mind  has  but  one  faculty  peculiarly  its  own,  and  that  is 
memory.  The  mind  is  pure  memory,  but  this  has  various 
forms.  The  primordial  memory,  the  intellect,  that  which  is  as 
it  were  the  framework  of  all  the  others, — the  containing  mem¬ 
ory, — consists  of  certain  beliefs,  the  negations  of  which  cannot 
be  conceived,  but  the  particular  grounds  of  which  are  forgot¬ 
ten.  This  memory  extends  back  of  the  individual  life,  is  de¬ 
rived  from  the  experience  of  the  race,  and  constitutes  the  in¬ 
nate  tendencies  and  mental  powers  with  which  the  individual 
life  begins.  This  sounds  like  Plato’s  doctrine,  that  learning 
is  a  kind  of  reminiscence ;  but  it  is  in  fact  pure  empiricism. 
Mind  is  but  a  reflex  of  organism.  But  the  organism  has  a 
memory, — a  memory  of  the  results  of  all  invariable  experiences 
in  the  continuous  evolutions  of  the  race.  No  empiricist  can 
find  any  radical  fault  with  this  account  of  innate  ideas. 

But  Mr.  Spencer  evolves  it  in  a  somewhat  different  manner. 
He  is  seeking  for  a  basis  of  psychology  which  shall  be  consist¬ 
ent  with  the  truth  of  empiricism,  and  at  the  same  time  with 
the  possibility  of  psychology  as  a  distinct  science.  Some  first 
truth  or  truths  peculiarly  psychological  are  wanted,  for  Mr. 
Spencer  proposes  to  try  his  speculative  powers  in  eliciting  what 
has  eluded  the  sagacity  of  his  predecessors  in  psychology, — in 
the  analysis  of  ideas.  Now,  the  existence  of  beliefs,  proved  to 
be  invariable  by  the  inconceivableness  of  their  negations,  is  a 
fundamental  fact  of  consciousness, — the  most  fundamental 
fact.  Beliefs  of  all  sorts  are  the  constituent  elements  of  con¬ 
sciousness.  Every  act  of  the  mind  involves  a  judgment,  that 
is,  a  belief;  and  the  only  test,  indeed  the  only  meaning,  of 
the  truth  of  a  belief  is  its  persistency .  Hence  invariableness  in 
a  belief,  as  proved  by  the  inconceivableness  of  its  negation,  is 
the  highest  possible  warrant  of  truth.  Sensible  experience  can 
give  no  higher  warrant.  The  mind,  therefore,  contains  in 
itself  the  criterion  of  truth;  and  psychology,  or  a  scientific 


6o 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


evolution  of  the  data  of  consciousness,  is  a  legitimate  philoso¬ 
phy.  And  this  is  thought  to  be  not  inconsistent  with  the  em¬ 
pirical  explanation  of  the  origin  of  invariable  beliefs,  namely, 
the  formation  of  the  mind  by  invariable,  often  repeated,  special 
experiences,  both  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race.  But  there 
is  a  superfluity  somewhere, — too  many  authorities.  Occam’s 
razor  is  not  too  old  to  apply  to  this  new  philosophy.  The 
characteristic  common  to  particular,  real  experiences,  and  to 
universal,  necessary  truths,  so  called, — namely,  that  they  are 
believed,  and  believed  without  appeal  to  anything  else, — this 
characteristic  is  either  from  the  same  or  from  different  sources. 
If  from  different  sources,  then  empiricism  is  false,  and  Psy¬ 
chology  is  a  legitimate  philosophy.  If  from  the  same  source, 
namely,  particular  experiences,  then  these  are  a  sufficient  au¬ 
thority,  and  indeed  the  only  final  appeal,  though  invariable 
beliefs,  “proved  to  be  invariable  by  the  inconceivableness  of 
their  negations,”  may  be  excellent  approximate  determinations 
of  what  experience  certifies.  No  empiricist  will  deny  this  ex¬ 
cellence  to  natural  beliefs,  but  this  is  not  ascribing  to  them  any 
proper  authority. 

In  discussing  this  his  criterion  or  “universal  postulate,”  Mr. 
Spencer  encounters  two  of  the  acutest  of  modern  thinkers, 
Mr.  Mill  and  Sir  William  Hamilton,  whose  opinions  he  finds 
opposed  to  his  own  on  opposite  grounds.  Here  is  a  fine 
chance  for  eclecticism,  to  combine  what  is  true  in  both  these 
philosophies ;  but  first  he  must  refute  what  is  false. 

Speaking  of  the  effect  of  habit  in  determining  the  limits  of 
our  conceptive  faculty,  Mr.  Mill  says  :  “  There  are  remarkable 
instances  of  this  in  the  history  of  science ;  instances  in  which 
the  wisest  men  rejected  as  impossible,  because  inconceivable, 
things  which  their  posterity,  by  earlier  practice  and  longer 
perseverance  in  the  attempt,  found  it  quite  easy  to  conceive, 
and  which  everybody  now  knows  to  be  true.”  While  grant¬ 
ing  that  this  evidence  is  sufficient  to  disprove  the  doctrine  of 
the  a  priori  character  of  our  natural  beliefs,  our  author  thinks 
that  “it  does  not  really  warrant  Mr.  Mill’s  inference,  that  it 
is  absurd  to  reject  a  proposition  as  impossible  on  no  other 
grounds  than  its  inconceivableness.”  Further  on  he  says: 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER.  6l 


“If  there  be,  as  Mr.  Mill  holds,  certain  absolute  uniformities  in  nat¬ 
ure  ;  if  these  uniformities  produce,  as  they  must,  absolute  uniformities 
in  our  experience;  and  if,  as  he  shows,  these  absolute  uniformities  in 
our  experience  disable  us  from  conceiving  the  negations  of  them,  —  then, 
answering  to  each  uniformity  in  nature  which  we  can  cognize,  there 
must  exist  in  us  a  belief  of  which  the  negation  is  inconceivable,  and  which 
is  absolutely  true.  In  this  wide  range  of  cases  subjective  inconceivable¬ 
ness  must  correspond  to  objective  impossibility.  Further  experience  will 
produce  correspondence  where  it  may  not  yet  exist ;  and  we  may  expect  the 
correspondence  to  become  ultimately  complete.  In  nearly  all  cases  this 
test  of  inconceivableness  must  be  valid  now ;  and  where  it  is  not,  it  still 
expresses  the  net  result  of  our  experience  up  to  the  present  time  ;  which 
is  the  m<?st  that  any  test  can  do.” 

True, — the  most  that  any  empirical  test  can  do ;  but  is  not 
Mr.  Spencer’s  test,  “  the  universal  postulate,”  exempt  from  this 
imperfection  ?  If  not,  how  does  it  warrant  rejecting  as  impos¬ 
sible  an  inconceivable  proposition,  o?i  no  other  ground  than  its 
inconceivableness  ?  Mr.  Spencer’s  argument,  condensed  and 
completed,  is  this.  If  there  be  any  such  things  as  universal 
necessary  truths,  then  invariable  beliefs  must  result  from  them  ; 
but  we  have  invariable  beliefs,  therefore  they  must  be  the  tests 
of  truth  !  If  A  exists,  then  B  exists ;  but  B  exists,  therefore — 
Mr.  Spencer  must  find  the  conclusion  in  his  own  logic :  neither 
Modus  Ponens  nor  Modus  Tottens  will  serve. 

“But,”  he  continues,  “the  inconsistency  into  which  Mr.  Mill  has  thus 
fallen  is  most  clearly  seen  in  the  second  of  his  two  chapters  on  ‘  Dem¬ 
onstration  and  Necessary  Truths.’  He  admits  in  this  the  validity  of 
proof  by  a  reductiQ  ad  absurdum.  Now  what  is  a  reduclio  ad  absurdum, 
unless  a  reduction  to  inconceivableness  ?  And  why,  if  inconceivableness 
be  in  other  cases  an  insufficient  ground  for  rejecting  a  proposition  as  im¬ 
possible,  is  it  a  sufficient  ground  in  this  case  ?  ” 

After  quoting  other  passages  from  Mill,  Mr.  Spencer  says  of 
them : 

“Here,  and  throughout  the  whole  of  his  argument,  Mr.  Mill  assumes 
that  there  is  something  more  certain  in  a  demonstration  than  in  anything 
else, — some  necessary  truth  in  the  steps  of  our  reasoning  which  is  not 
possessed  by  the  axioms  they  start  from.  How  can  this  assumption  be 
justified  ?  In  each  successive  syllogism,  the  dependence  of  the  conclusion 
upon  its  premises  is  a  truth  of  which  we  have  no  other  proof  than  the  in¬ 
conceivability  of  the  negation.  Unless  our  perception  of  logical  truth  is 
a  priori ,  which  Mr.  Mill  will  not  contend,  it  too,  like  our  perceptions  of 
mathematical  truth,  has  been  gained  from  experience,”  etc. 


62 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


Now  all  this  shows  a  grand  confusion  in  Mr.  Spencer’s  mind. 
He  bases  his  postulate,  the  ultimate  test  of  all  truth,  on  two 
hypotheses , — the  existence  of  universal  facts  or  absolute  uni¬ 
formities  in  nature,  and  their  effect  in  producing  invariable 
beliefs  in  the  mind;  and  because  Mr.  Mill  allows  these  as  em¬ 
pirical  generalizations,  he  is  regarded  as  inconsistent  in  not 
allowing  the  character  of  necessity  to  an  imperfect  conclusion 
from  them !  But  Mr.  Mill  does  not  deny  to  natural  beliefs  a 
proximate  or  derivative  authority.  Both  logical  axioms  and  the 
axioms  to  which  they  are  applied  in  reasoning  may  safely  be 
taken  as  properly  accredited  from  experience;  but  their  Author¬ 
ity  is  secondary,  and  such  authority  is  not  always  to  be  trusted, 
as  Mr.  Mill’s  historical  example  shows.  The  imperfect  argu¬ 
ment,  “  If  A,  then  B,  but  B,”  proves  nothing  absolutely,  but 
it  may  determine  a  probability.  Mr.  Mill  maintains  that  there 
are  degrees  of  trustworthiness  in  natural  beliefs,  as  well  as  in 
the  so-called  empirical  beliefs,  and  that  this  trustworthiness 
depends  absolutely,  not  on  the  strength  of  our  beliefs,  whether 
this  be  absolute  or  not,  but  on  particular  experiences,  ultimately 
and  absolutely. 

Mr.  Spencer  endeavors  to  explain  away  Mill’s  historical  ex¬ 
ample, — the  fact  that  certain  Greek  philosophers  could  not 
credit  the  existence  of  antipodes, — by  the  consideration  that 
the  conception,  which  seemed  impossible  to  these  philosophers, 
is  really  a  complex  one,  whereas  the  truths  which  are  properly 
attested  by  the  inconceivableness  of  their  negations  are  sim¬ 
ple  “undecomposable  ”  ones.  He  therefore  puts  a  modifying 
clause  into  his  canon.  It  is  necessary  that  the  ideas  so  tested 
be  simple.  The  mind  in  the  confusion  of  compound  ideas  may 
think  that  it  conceives  what  it  really  does  not  conceive,  and  that 
it  cannot  conceive  what  it  really  can  conceive.  The  certainty 
of  the  application  of  the  test  depends  on  the  number  of  really 
independent  applications  which  it  involves,  in  each  of  which 
the  mind  is  liable  to  a  slip  of  the  attention.  Mistakes  from  a 
confusion  of  matters  are  quite  independent  of  the  essential 
trustworthiness  of  our  primary  sources  of  knowledge.  Even 
the  senses  may  get  confused.  Why  not,  then,  our  invariable 
ideas  ?  Easily :  for  does  not  Mr.  Spencer  himself  confound  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


authority  of  our  natural  beliefs  with  their  utility  in  directing  us 
to  what  our  experie?ices  certify  ? 

Mr.  Spencer  is  mistaken  in  supposing  that  any  middle 
ground  is  possible  between  empiricism  and  metaphysics,  or 
that  the  characteristic  ideas  of  these  two  philosophies  can  be 
reconciled  by  the  hypothesis  of  organized  experiences,  anterior 
to  the  life  of  the  individual  mind.  In  these  experiences,  as  in 
those  of  the  individual  life,  particular  facts  are  the  real  author¬ 
ities,  as  is  evinced  by  what  Mr.  Spencer  cannot  deny,  that  such 
facts  are  competent  to  overthrow  the  most  settled  beliefs.  It 
avails  nothing  to  say  that  such  facts  cannot  be  experienced, 
the  mind  being,  ex  hypothesis  unable  to  conceive  them  even  if 
they  exist ;  for  this  is  to  convict  natural  beliefs  and  the  mind 
itself  of  incompetency,  not  to  establish  these  beliefs  as  compe¬ 
tent  authorities. 

In  reviewing  previous  attempts  to  find  an  independent  basis 
for  Psychology,  Mr.  Spencer  encounters  Sir  William  Hamil¬ 
ton’s  philosophy  of  Common-Sense.  After  quoting  Hamilton’s 
leading  maxims,  that  “Consciousness  is  to  be  presumed  trust¬ 
worthy  until  proved  to  be  mendacious,”  and  that  “the  men¬ 
dacity  of  consciousness  is  proved,  if  its  data  immediately  in 
themselves,  or  mediately  in  their  necessary  consequences,  be 
shown  to  stand  in  mutual  contradiction,”  he  says: 

“Now  a  sceptic  might  very  properly  argue  that  this  test  is  worthless. 
For  as  the  steps  by  which  consciousness  is  to  be  proved  mendacious  are 
themselves  states  of  consciousness ;  and  as  they  must  be  assumed  trust¬ 
worthy  in  the  act  of  proving  that  consciousness  is  not  so ;  the  process 
results  in  assuming  the  trustworthiness  of  particular  states  of  conscious¬ 
ness,  to  prove  the  mendacity  of  consciousness  in  general.  Or  to  apply 
the  test  specifically : — Let  it  be  shown  that  two  data  of  consciousness 
stand  in  contradiction.  Then  consciousness  is  mendacious.  But  if  con¬ 
sciousness  is  mendacious,  then  the  consciousness  of  this  consciousness  is 
mendacious.  Then  consciousness  is  trustworthy.  And  so  on  forever.” 

But  the  condition  of  vacillation  to  which  Mr.  Spencer  re¬ 
duces  the  sceptic’s  application  of  Hamilton’s  criterion  is  itself 
the  true  condition  of  scepticism.  Mr.  Spencer  seems  to  mean 
by  scepticism  a  dogmatic  scepticism, — if  we  may  be  allowed 
the  expression, — or  a  negative  dogmatism ;  whereas  Hamilton 
means  by  scepticism  a  negation  of  all  philosophical  judgments, 


64 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


the  “  what  do  I  know  ?  ”  condition  of  a  mind  confused  about 
authorities;  and  Mr.  Spencer  has  really  given  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  application  of  these  maxims,  while  seeking 
to  depreciate  their  value.  But  the  condition  of  scepticism  is 
best  illustrated  by  the  original  of  the  sophism  to  which  he  re¬ 
duces  Hamilton’s  maxims.  “  If  you  say  that  you  lie,  and  say 
so  truly,  then  you  do  lie;  but  if  you  say  so  falsely,  then  you 
speak  the  truth.  In  either  case,  therefore,  the  same  statement 
is  both  true  and  false.”  To  the  fearful  consequences  of  such 
lying  is  the  sceptic  reduced  who  doubts  the  testimony  of  con¬ 
sciousness.  Mr.  Spencer  gives  to  this  sophism  the  more  com¬ 
mon  but  inferior  form,  of  which  the  original  is  this :  “  All 
Cretans  are  liars.  But  Epimenides,  who  says  this,  is  himself  a 
Cretan.  Therefore,  as  he  is  a  liar,  this  saying  is  not  true. 
But  if  the  saying  is  not  true,  Epimenides  may  have  spoken  the 
truth.  Then  the  saying  is  true : — and  so  on  as  before.”  In 
his  singular  misapprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  word  “  scep¬ 
ticism  ”  in  philosophy,  Mr.  Spencer  illustrates  another  trait  of 
his  writings.  He  means  by  “sceptic”  one  who  doubts  the 
essential  doctrines  of  orthodox  philosophy,  “natural  realism,” 
“personal  identity,”  “the  possibility  of  a  science  of  psychol¬ 
ogy,”  and  the  like;  and  as  he  is  opposed  to  such  sceptics,  he 
gives  the  impression  to  the  world  that  he  is  ranged  on  the  side 
of  orthodoxy.  But  it  is  only  with  the  husks  of  orthodoxy  that 
he  feeds  his  flock.  He  does  not  defend  its  doctrines  as  Ham¬ 
ilton  did  in  the  interests  of  dogmatic  theology  and  religion, 
but  simply  from  the  vanity  of  disputation. 

It  cannot  be  said  of  Hamilton’s  criterion,  that  it  is  of  any 
greater  value  than  Mr.  Spencer’s,  or  that  it  yields  anything 
more  as  a  principle  of  research,  but  it  at  least  has  the  merits 
of  self-consistency  and  distinctness. 

In  reviewing  the  objections  to  the  test  of  inconceivableness, 
Mr.  Spencer  again  finds  himself  opposed  to  Sir  William  Ham¬ 
ilton.  The  doughty  knight  is  encased  in  a  seemingly  invulner¬ 
able  logic,  and  impedes  the  progress  of  truth.  After  stating 
certain  minor  and  indecisive  objections  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
“conditioned,”  Mr.  Spencer  waives  them. 

‘‘Granting  all  this,”  he  says,  “Sir  William  Hamilton’s  argument  may 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


still  be  met.  He  says  that  inconceivability  is  no  criterion  of  impossi¬ 
bility.  Why  ?  Because  of  two  propositions,  one  of  which  must  be  true  ; 
it  proves  both  impossible, — it  proves  that  space  cannot  have  a  limit,  be¬ 
cause  a  limit  is  inconceivable,  and  yet  that  it  has  a  limit,  because  unlimited 
space  is  inconceivable ;  it  proves,  therefore,  that  space  has  a  limit  and  has 
no  limit,  which  is  absurd.  How  absurd?  Absurd  because  ‘it  is  impos¬ 
sible  for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be.’  But  how  do  we  know  that 
it  is  impossible  for  the  same  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  ?  What  is  our 
criterion  of  this  impossibility  ?  Can  Sir  William  Hamilton  assign  any 
other  than  this  same  inconceivability?  If  not,  his  argument  is  self¬ 
destructive  ;  seeing  that  he  assumes  the  validity  of  the  test  in  proving  its 
invalidity.” 

This  is  the  same  shaft  ad  hommem  which  Mr.  Spencer  lev¬ 
eled  at  Mill,  and  it  glances  for  the  same  reason.  He  does  not 
precisely  apprehend  the  position  of  his  antagonist.  Hamilton’s 
argument  is  not  self-destructive,  since  it  is  only  designed  to 
prove  the  incompleteness  of  the  test,  which  Mr.  Spencer  has 
adopted  in  its  baldest  and  crudest  form.  What  was  an  obvi¬ 
ous  pctitio  pimcipii  as  applied  to  Mr.  Mill,  namely,  ascribing 
to  him  the  opinion  that  logical  axioms  rest  ultimately  on  the 
test  of  the  inconceivableness  of  their  negations,  is  none  the 
less  really  such  as  applied  to  Hamilton’s  doctrines.  Ham¬ 
ilton  can  and  does  assign  a  different  criterion.  Mr.  Mill  ap¬ 
peals  to  particular  experiences  as  the  tests,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  that  word,  of  all  axioms  logical  or  mathematical ;  while 
Hamilton  admits  for  them  a  psychological  test,  analogous  to 
Mr.  Spencer’s,  yet  more  complete.  “A  proposition  which  can 
be  conceived,  but  of  which  the  negation  cannot  be  conceived, 
is  true,  and  its  negation  is  false,”  is  the  complete  formula. 

The  conceivable  and  inconceivable  correspond  to  the  possible 
and  impossible  only  when  logically  opposed  to  each  other.  If 
two  conceivables  could  be  logically  opposed  to  each  other,  we 
should  have  scepticism  in  the  philosophical  sense  of  the  word, 
or  as  Hamilton  uses  it.  If  two  inconceivables  are  logically  op¬ 
posed,  we  have  no  test  of  true  or  false;  yet  not  that  vacillation 
of  the  mind,  that  uncertainty,  which  is  the  characteristic  of  ’ 
scepticism.  But  we  have  the  feeling  that  there  is  truth  beyond 
the  power  of  knowledge,  or  that  “the  domain  of  our  knowl¬ 
edge  is  not  co-extensive  with  the  horizon  of  our  faith;”  for 
a  principle  of  truth — the  principle  of  non-contradiction — -is 


66 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


seen  to  extend  where  sense  and  imagination  and  our  powers 
of  conception  cannot  follow.  This  decides  nothing  positively. 
It  only  shows  that  unbelief  or  negative  dogmatism  is  unfound¬ 
ed,  and  it  opens  the  way  for  the  authority  of  religious  feeling, 
in  whose  behalf  the  contests  of  philosophy  are  undertaken  by 
all  but  such  pretended  champions  as  Mr.  Spencer.  Hamilton 
went  to  the  extremest  verge  in  the  direction  of  empiricism 
which  it  was  possible  to  reach,  without  renouncing  the  inter¬ 
ests  for  which  philosophy  proper  has  always  been  cultivated. 
Empiricism  has  other  interests,  worthy  interests,  but  they  are 
not  religious. 

It  was  necessary  to  a  philosophical  defense  of  religious  doc¬ 
trines  to  establish  logical  axioms  on  a  broader  basis  than  ex¬ 
perience  can  afford,  in  order  to  secure  a  ground  for  belief  in 
truths  which  are  inconceivable,  or  truths  of  which  the  terms 
cannot  be  united  in  a  judgment  either  by  proofs  from  what  is 
really  known  or  by  intuition;  and  in  order  also  to  reason  about 
such  truths,  and  bring  the  objects  of  religious  feeling,  partially 
at  least,  within  the  scope  of  our  thoughts.  Such  are  the  mo¬ 
tives  for  metaphysical  philosophy,  and  such  indeed  are  the  only 
grounds  for  metaphysics.  Philosophy  converts  practical  rea¬ 
sons  or  final  causes  into  theoretical  reasons,  and  postulates  a 
faculty  where  there  is  only  a  feeling.  But  after  all,  that  which 
the  Best  in  us  most  prizes  is  not  so  much  the  service  of  Phi¬ 
losophy  as  that  for  which  this  service  is  undertaken. 

Mr.  Spencer  pursues  his  discussion  of  this  subject  in  the  first 
part  of  his  recently  published  work,  the  “  First  Principles  of  a 
New  System  of  Philosophy,”  to  the  consideration  of  which  we 
shall  presently  come.  Of  his  further  developments  in  Psy¬ 
chology  we  can  only  say  that  they  are  very  wearisome.  He 
makes  little  explicit  use  of  his  postulate ;  for  this,  after  all,  is 
only  a  license  to  take  any  ideas  one  chooses  for  the  bases  of 
science,  if  one  only  cannot  conceive  their  negations.  It  is  one 
of  those  unproductive  principles  which  Positivism  condemns; 
and  he  develops  others  equally  useless,  except  in  the  mental 
discipline  there  may  be  in  following  their  evolution.  One  such 
application  of  his  method  is  in  search  of  a  definition  of  Life, 
which  after  a  development  in  as  many  pages  results  in  these 


/ 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


67 


I 


words :  “  Life  is  defined  as — The  definite  combination  of 
heterogeneous  changes,  both  simultaneous  and  successive,  in 
correspondence  with  external  co-existences  and  sequences.” 
These  words  are  sufficiently  abstract  to  be  of  some  scientific 
service,  but  they  only  make  Life  the  more  perplexing,  which 
had  mysteries  enough  before.  But  we  ought  not  to  prejudge. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Spencer  will  be  able,  when  he  comes  to  treat  of 
Morality  in  his  new  philosophy,  to  apply  this  definition  in 
elucidating  the  principles  of  correct  living. 

But  to  return  to  the  argument  of  his  “  Social  Statics.”  This  is 
a  thorough-going  application  of  one  of  the  conditions  of  human 
happiness  to  all  the  relations  of  human  life, — namely,  the  Law 
of  Liberty,  or  the  “Let  alone  Principle.”  To  warrant  the  ex¬ 
clusive  application  of  this  principle  to  the  deduction  of  social 
laws  and  the  limits  of  state  powers,  he  postulates  it  as  a  part 
or  one  side  of  a  perfect  law,  of  which  we  have  knowledge 
through  a  moral  sense.  This  sense  has  not  an  a  priori  char¬ 
acter,  as  the  metaphysicians  maintain,  but  is  derived  from  the 
observation,  by  the  human  race  as  a  whole,  of  the  conditions 
essential  to  human  happiness  on  the  whole,  and  is  developed 
in  our  nature  with  the  evolution  of  civilization,  as  the  instinct 
which  cares  for  the  interests  of  society,  just  as  the  bodily  appe¬ 
tites  are  produced  to  care  for  the  interests  of  the  individual 
organism.  This  doctrine  is  perfectly  analogous  to  that  which 
he  develops  more  explicitly  in  the  “Principles  of  Psychology” 
concerning  the  origin  and  character  of  natural  beliefs.  He 
makes  the  same  mistake  in  basing  a  criterion  on  an  hypothesis, 
and  he  is  inconsistent  in  the  same  way  in  ascribing  to  his 
“moral  sense”  an  original  authority.  With  the  exception  of 
these  errors,  there  is  nothing  in  his  doctrine  of  moral  sense 
with  which  the  utilitarian  can  find  fault.  But  he  develops  his 
ideas  in  this  his  earlier  work  so  inexplicitly,  that  not  only  Mr. 
Mill,*  but  many  others,  have  mistaken  him  for  an  opponent  of 
utilitarianism.  By  ascribing  an  absolute  authority  to  intellect¬ 
ual  and  moral  ideas,  when  on  his  principles  he  ought  only  to 
have  ascribed  to  them  a  relative  and  derivative  one,  he  was  led 
into  mistakes  which  have  given  rise  to  misinterpretations  of  his 

*  See  Essay  on  Utilitarianism.  * 


68 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISC  US S IONS. 


doctrines, — misinterpretations  of  which  he  cannot  justly  com¬ 
plain.  But  he  has  also  gained  a  reputation  for  orthodoxy, 
which  he  does  not  deserve. 

Mr.  Spencer  succeeds  better  in  his  shorter  essays,  many  of 
which  for  ingenuity,  originality,  and  scientific  interest  have 
been  rarely  surpassed.  But  judging  only  by  his  writing 
and  the  general  character  of  his  thinking,  we  should  not 
ascribe  to  him  that  precision  in  the  apprehension  of  scien¬ 
tific  facts  which  comes  chiefly  from  a  successful  cultivation 
of  experimental  and  mathematical  research  in  natural  history 
and  natural  philosophy.  To  learn  only  the  results  of  such 
researches  and  the  general  character  of  their  processes  is 
not  enough.  One  must  also  be  qualified  -  to  pursue  them. 
The  fact  that  Mr.  Spencer  was  at  one  time  a  civil  engineer 
seems  to  militate  against  this  judgment  of  his  qualifications. 
But  though  a  marked  success  and  a  reputation  acquired 
in  this  pursuit  would  be  of  great  weight  in  determining  our 
judgment,  yet,  in  the  absence  of  any  evidence  of  this  kind,  we 
adhere  to  the  opinion  we  have  formed  from  his  writings.  We 
will  say  nothing  of  the  impossibility  of  any  one  man’s  acquiring 
adequately  all  the  knowledge  requisite  for  the  successful  ac¬ 
complishment  of  such  an  undertaking  as  Mr.  Spencer  has  pro¬ 
posed  for  himself. 

But  a  part  of  this  work  has  become  an  accomplished  fact. 
The  “First  Principles”  of  the  new  system  of  philosophy  has 
appeared,  and  a  serial  publication  of  parts  of  another  work  on 
the  “Principles  of  Biology”  is  now  in  progress.  Mr.  Spencer 
modestly  omits  from  his  gigantic  scheme  any  special  consider¬ 
ation  of  physics  or  the  principles  of  inorganic  nature ;  although 
his  training  in  mathematics  and  engineering  would  seem  at  first 
sight  to  be  a  preparation  best  suited  to  this  subject.  Perhaps 
he  regards  this  science  as  standing  in  little  need  of  his  develop¬ 
ments,  and  besides  he  has  already  published  some  of  his  views 
on  this  subject  in  his  essay  on  the  Nebular  Hypothesis,  and 
his  “First  Principles”  involve  generalizations  from  physical 
theories. 

To  the  positivists  the  sciences  of  general  physics,  that  is  As¬ 
tronomy,  Mechanical  and  Chemical  Physics,  and  Chemistry, 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER .  69 

afford  the  patterns  for  all  the  sciences,  and  some,  like  Physiol¬ 
ogy,  are  beginning  to  profit  by  such  examples.  But  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer  does  not  find  in  general  physics  free  play  for  his  ideas.  It 
is  only  in  what  constitutes  the  problems  and  obscurities  of  these 
sciences  that  he  finds  free  exemplifications  of  his  principles. 

In  the  nebular  hypothesis  and  in  the  obscure  relations  of  phys¬ 
ical  forces  to  organic  life,  and  in  the  hypothesis  of  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  organic  life  through  successive  geological  eras,  he  is 
at  home.  He  is  conscious  of  the  temptation  there  is  to  im¬ 
pose  teleological  interpretations  upon  the  obscurities  of  science ; 
and  he  therefore  aims  to  free  his  speculations  as  much  as  possi¬ 
ble  from  these  biases,  but  with  as  little  success  as  he  had  in.  his 
Psychology  in  correcting  the  errors  of  metaphysics  by  the  light 
of  empirical  science. 

The  idea  which  has  exercised  the  profoundest  influence  on 
the  course  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  thought,  as  well  as  on  all  thought 
in  modern  times,  and  one  which  appears  more  or  less  distinct¬ 
ly  in  nearly  all  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  writings,  is  the  idea  which  he 
elaborates  in  his  “ First  Principles”  as  the  “  Law  of  Evolution.” 

But  what  is  the  origin  and  value  of  this  idea  ?  Ostensibly  it 
was  derived  from  the  investigations  of  the  physiologists  in  em¬ 
bryology,.  from  Harvey  down  to  the  present  time.  The  formula  \/ 
of  Von  Baer  was  the  first  adequate  statement  of  it.  This  for¬ 
mula  Mr.  Spencer  has  elaborated  and  completed,  so  as  to  apply, 
he  thinks,  not  only  to  the  phenomena  of  embryology,  but  to  the 
phenomena  of  nature  generally,  and  especially,  as  it  appears,  to 
those  which  we  know  least  about,  and  to  those  which  we  only 
guess  at. 

But  while  this  is  the  ostensible  origin  and  scientific  value  of 
this  idea,  its  real  origin  is  a  very  curious  and  instructive  fact  in 
human  nature.  Progress  is  a  grand  idea, — Universal  .  Progress 
is  a  still  grander  idea.  It  strikes  the  key-note  of  modern  civil¬ 
ization.  Moral  idealism  is  the  religion  of  our  times.  What 
the  ideas  God,  the  One  and  the  All,  the  Infinite  First  Cause, 
were  to  an  earlier  civilization,  such  are  Progress  and  Universal 
Progress  to  the  modern  world, — a  reflex  of  its  moral  ideas  and 
feelings,  and  not  a  tradition.  Men  ever  worship  the  Best,  and 
the  consciousness  that  the  Best  is  attainable  is  the  highest  moral 


70 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


consciousness,  the  most  inspiring  of  truths.  And  when  in¬ 
dications  of  that  attainment  are  visible  not  merely  to  the  eye 
of  faith,  but  in  sensible  progress,  scientifically  measurable,  civ¬ 
ilization  is  inspired  with  a  new  devotion.  Faith  that  moral  per¬ 
fectibility  is  possible,  not  in  remote  times  and  places,  not  in  the 
millennium,  not  in  heaven,  but  in  the  furtherance  of  a  present 
progress,  is  a  faith  which  to  possess  in  modern  times  does  not 
make  a  man  suspected  of  folly  or  fanaticism.  He  may  forget 
the  past,  cease  to  be  religious  in  the  conventional  sense  of  the 
word,  but  he  is  the  modern  prophet. 

When  Plato  forsook  the  scientific  studies  of  his  youth,  and 
found  the  truest  interpretations  of  nature  by  asking  his  own 
mind  what  was  the  best,  according  to  which,  he  felt  sure,  the 
order  and  framework  of  nature  must  be  determined,  he  did  but 
illustrate  the  influence  which  strongly  impressed  moral  ideas 
have  on  speculative  thought  at  all  times;  but  he  did  it  con¬ 
sciously  and  avowedly.  Modern  thinkers  may  be  less  conscious 
of  this  influence,  may  endeavor  to  suppress  what  consciousness 
they  have  of  it,  warned  by  the  history  of  philosophy  that  tele¬ 
ological  speculations  are  exploded  follies;  nevertheless,  the  in¬ 
fluence  surrounds  and  penetrates  them  like  an  atmosphere,  un¬ 
less  they  be  moral  phlegmatics  and  mere  lookers-on. 

It  was  Mr.  Spencer’s  aim  to  free  the  law  of  evolution  from 
all  teleological  implications,  and  to  add  such  elements  and  lim¬ 
itations  to  its  definition  as  should  make  it  universally  applica¬ 
ble  to  the  movement  of  nature.  Having  done  this,  as  he  thinks, 
he  arrives  at  the  following  definition  :  “  Evolution  is  a  change 
from  an  indefinite  incoherent  homogeneity  to  a  definite  coherent 
heterogeneity  through  continuous  differentiations  and  integra¬ 
tions.”  But  teleology  is  a  subtile  poison,  and  lurks  where  least 
suspected.  The  facts  of  the  sciences  which  Dr.  Whewell  calls 
palsetiological,  like  the  various  branches  of  geology,  and  every 
actual  concrete  series  of  events  which  together  form  an  object 
of  interest  to  us,  are  apt,  unless  we  are  fully  acquainted  with 
the  actual  details  through  observation  or  by  actual  particular 
deductions  from  well-known  particular  facts  and  general  laws, 
to  fall  into  a  dramatic  procession  in  our  imaginations.  The 
mythic  instinct  slips  into  the  place  of  the  chronicles  at  every 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


71 


opportunity.  All  history  is  written  on  dramatic  principles.  All 
cosmological  speculations  are  strictly  teleological.  We  never 
can  comprehend  the  whole  of  a  concrete  series  of  events. 
What  arrests  our  attention  in  it  is  what  constitutes  the  parts  of 
an  order  either  real  or  imaginary,  and  all  merely  imaginary  or¬ 
ders  are  dramatic,  or  are  determined  by  interests  which  are 
spontaneous  in  human  life.  Our  speculations  about  what  we 
have  not  really  observed,  to  which  we  supply  the  order  and 
most  of  the  facts,  are  necessarily  determined  by  some  principle 
of  order  in  our  minds.  Now  the  most  general  principle  which 
we  can  have  is  this  :  that  the  concrete  series  shall  be  an  in¬ 
telligible  series  in  its  entirety ;  thus  alone  can  it  interest  and 
attract  our  thoughts  and  arouse  a  rational  curiosity. 

But  to  suppose  that  such  series  exist  anywhere  but  where 
observation  and  legitimate  particular  inferences  from  observa¬ 
tion  warrant  the  supposition,  is  to  commit  the  same  mistake 
which  has  given  rise  to  teleological  theories  of  nature.  The 
“law  of  causation,”  the  postulate  of  positive  science,  does  not 
go  to  this  extent.  It  does  not  suppose  that  there  are  through¬ 
out  nature  unbroken  series  in  causation,  forming  in  their  en¬ 
tirety  intelligible  wholes,  determinable  in  their  beginnings, 
their  progressions,  and  their  ends,  with  a  birth,  a  growth,  a 
maturation,  and  a  decay.  It  only  presumes  that  the  perhaps 
unintelligible  wholes,  both  in  the  sequences  and  the  co-exist¬ 
ences  of  natural  phenomena,  are  composed  of  intelligible  ele¬ 
ments  ;  that  chaos  does  not  subsist  at  the  heart  of  things ;  that 
the  order  in  nature  which  is  discernible  vaguely  even  to  the 
unobservant  implies  at  least  a  precise  elementary  order,  or  fixed 
relations  of  antecedents  and  consequents  in  its  ultimate  parts 
and  constituents ;  that  the  apparently  irregular  heterogeneous 
masses,  the  concrete  series  of  events,  are  crystalline  in  their 
substance. 

To  discover  these  elementary  fixed  relations  of  antecedents 
and  consequents,  is  the  work  of  scientific  induction;  and  the 
only  postulate  of  science  is,  that  these  relations  are  everywhere 
to  be  found.  To  account,  as  far  as  possible,  for  any  concrete 
order,  intelligible  as  a  whole,  or  regular,  like  that  of  life,  is  the 
work  of  scientific  explanation,  by  deductions  from  the  element- 


72 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


ary  fixed  relations  which  induction  may  have  discovered 
But  to  explain  any  such  order  by  simply  defining  it  externally 
in  vague,  abstract  terms,  and  to  postulate  such  orders  as  the 
components  of  nature  and  parts  of  one  complete  and  intelligi¬ 
ble  order,  is  to  take  a  step  in  advance  of  legitimate  speculation, 
and  a  step  backward  in  scientific  method, — is  to  commit  the 
mistake  of  the  ancient  philosophies  of  nature. 

But  Mr.  Spencer  thinks  he  has  established  his  “Law  of  Evo 
lution”  by  induction.  The  examples  from  which  he  has  an 
alyzed  his  law,  the  examples  of  progress  in  the  development 
of  the  several  elements  of  civilization,  such  as  languages,  laws, 
fashions,  and  ideas, — the  hypothetical  examples  of  the  Nebular 
Hypothesis  and  the  Development  Hypothesis,  and  the  example 
of  embryological  development  (the  only  one  our  conceptions 
of  which  are  not  liable  to  be  tainted  by  teleological  biases), — 
are  examples  which,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer’s  philosophy, 
afford  both  the  definition  and  its  justification.  In  other  words, 
his  definitions  are  only  carefully  elaborated  general  descriptions 
in  abstract  terms ;  or  statements  of  facts  which  are  observed  in 
numerous  instances  or  classes  of  instances,  in  terms  detached 
from  all  objects,  in  abstract  terms,  of  which  the  intension  is 
fully  known,  but  of  which  the  extension  is  unknown  except 
through  the  descriptions  they  embody.  This,  though  a  useful, 
is  a  precarious  kind  of  induction,  and  is  apt  to  lead  to  prema¬ 
ture  and  false  generalizations,  or  extensions  of  descriptions  to 
what  is  hypothetical  or  unknown.  Such  inductions  are  liable 
to  be  mistaken  for  another  sort,  and  to  be  regarded  as  not 
merely  general,  but  universal  descriptions,  and  as  applicable  to 
what  they  do  not  really  apply  to.  This  liability  is  strong  just 
in  proportion  as  prominence  is  given  to  such  definitions  in  a 
philosophical  system.  No  convert  to  Mr.  Spencer’s  philosophy 
doubts  the  substantial  correctness  of  the  Nebular  and  Devel¬ 
opment  Hypotheses,  though  these  are  only  hypothetical  ex¬ 
amples  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  law. 

The  other  sort  of  inductions  to  which  we  have  referred  are 
peculiar  to  the  exact  inductive  sciences.  Facts  which  are  not 
merely  general,  but,  from  their  elementary  character  and  their 
immediate  relations  to  the  orderliness  of  nature,  are  presumed 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


73 


to  be  universal  facts,  are  the  sort  which  the  positive  philosophy 
most  prizes,  and  of  which  the  law  of  gravitation  is  the  typical 
example.  The  honor  must  be  conceded  to  Mr.  Spencer  of  hav¬ 
ing  elaborated  a  precise  and  very  abstract  description  of  cer¬ 
tain  phenomena,  the  number,  the  other  characters,  and  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  which  are,  however,  unknown,  but  are  all  the  more 
imposing  from  this  circumstance. 

The  law  of  gravity  was  a  key  which  deciphered  a  vast  body 
of  otherwise  obscure  phenomena,  and  (what  is  more  to  the 
purpose)  was  successfully  applied  to  the  solution  of  all  the 
problems  these  phenomena  presented.  It  is  common  to  ascribe 
to  Newton  the  merit  of  having  discovered  the  law  of  gravity,  in 
the  same  sense  in  which  Mr.  Spencer  may  be  said  to  have  dis¬ 
covered  his  law.  The  justness  of  this  praise  may  well  be  doubt¬ 
ed;  for  others  had  speculated  and  defined  the  law  of  gravity 
before  Newton.  What  he  really  discovered  was  the  universality 
of  this  law,  or  so  nearly  discovered  it  that  the  astronomers 
who  completed  the  investigation  did  not  hesitate  to  concede  to 
him  the  full  honor.  He  established  for  it  such  a  degree  of 
probability  that  his  successors  pursued  the  verification  with  un¬ 
hesitating  confidence,  and  still  pursue  it  in  the  fullness  of  faith. 

Mr.  Spencer’s  law  is  founded  on  examples,  of  which  only  one 
class,  the  facts  of  embryology,  are  properly  scientific.  The 
others  are  still  debated  as  to  their  real  characters.  Theories  of 
society  and  of  the  character  and  origin  of  social  progress,  the¬ 
ories  on  the  origins  and  the  changes  of  organic  forms,  and  the¬ 
ories  on  the  origins  and  the  causes  of  cosmical  bodies  and  their 
arrangements,  are  all  liable  to  the  taint  of  teleological  and  cos¬ 
mological  conceptions, — to  spring  from  the  order,  which  the 
mind  imposes  upon  what  it  imperfectly  observes,  rather  than 
from  that  which  the  objects,  were  they  better  known,  would 
supply  to  the  mind. 

To  us  Mr.  Spencer’s  speculation  seems  but  the  abstract  state¬ 
ment  of  the  cosmological  conceptions,  and  that  kind  of  order¬ 
liness  which  the  human  mind  spontaneously  supplies  in  the 
absence  of  facts  sufficiently  numerous  and  precise  to  justify 
sound  scientific  conclusions.  Progress  and  development,  when 
they  mean  more  than  a  continuous  proceeding,  have  a  mean- 
4 


74 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


ing  suspiciously  like  what  the  moral  and  mythic  instincts  are 
inclined  to, — something  having  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an 
end, — an  epic  poem,  a  dramatic  representation,  a  story,  a  cos¬ 
mogony.  It  is  not  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  science  that 
the  idea  of  progress  be  freed  from  any  reference  to  human 
happiness  as  an  end.  Teleology  does  not  consist  entirely  of 
speculations  having  happy  denouements ,  save  that  the  perfection 
or  the  end  to  which  the  progress  tends  is  a  happiness  to  the 
intellect  that  contemplates  it  in  its  evolution  and  beauty  of 
orderliness.  Plato’s  astronomical  speculations  were  teleolog¬ 
ical  in  this  artistic  sense. 

It  is  not  sufficient  for  the  purposes  of  science,  that  the  idea 
of  progress  be  thus  purified ;  and  it  would  be  better  if  science 
itself  were  purified  of  this  idea,  at  least  until  proof  of  its  extent 
and  reality  be  borne  in  upon  the  mind  by  the  irresistible  force 
of  a  truly  scientific  induction.  Aristotle  exhibited  the  charac¬ 
teristics  of  scientific  genius  in  no  way  more  distinctly  than  in 
the  rejection  of  this  idea,  and  of  all  cosmological  speculations. 

But  there  is  a  truth  implied  in  this  idea,  and  an  important 
one, — the  truth,  namely,  that  the  proper  objects  of  scientific  re¬ 
search  are  all  of  them  processes  and  the  results  of  processes ; 
not  the  immutable  natures  which  Plato  sought  for  above  a 
world  of  confusion  and  unreality,  in  the  world  of  his  own  in¬ 
telligence,  but  the  immutable  elements  in  the  orders  of  all 
changes,  the  permanent  relations  of  co-existences  and  sequences, 
which  are  hidden  in  the  confusions  of  complex  phenomena. 
Thought  itself  is  a  process  and  the  mind  a  complex  series  of 
processes,  the  immutable  elements  of  which  must  be  dis¬ 
covered,  not  merely  by  introspection  or  by  self-consciousness, 
but  by  the  aid  of  physiological  researches  and  by  indirect 
observation.  Everything  out  of  the  mind  is  a  product,  the 
result  of  some  process.  Nothing  is  exempt  from  change. 
Worlds  are  formed  and  dissipated.  Races  of  organic  beings 
grow  up  like  their  constituent  individual  members,  and  dis¬ 
appear  like  these.  Nothing  shows  a  trace  of  an  original,  im¬ 
mutable  nature,  except  the  unchangeable  laws  of  change. 
These  point  to  no  beginning  and  to  no  end  in  time,  nor  to  any 
bounds  in  space.  All  indications  to  the  contrary  in  the  results 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


75 


of  physical  research  are  clearly  traceable  to  imperfections  in 
our  present  knowledge  of  all  the  laws  of  change,  and  to  that 
disposition  to  cosmological  speculations  which  still  prevails 
even  in  science. 

We  propound  these  doctrines  not  as  established  ones,  but  as 
having  a  warrant  from  the  general  results  of  physical  research 
similar  to  that  which  the  postulate  of  science,  the  law  of  causa¬ 
tion,  has  in  the  vaguely  discerned  order  in  nature,  which 
forces  itself  on  the  attention  even  of  the  unobservant.  But  as 
a  mind  unfamiliar  with  science  is  easily  persuaded  that  there 
are  phenomena  in  nature  to  which  the  law  of  causation  does 
not  apply,  phenomena  intrinsically  arbitrary  and  capricious, 
so  even  to  those  most  familiar  with  our  present  knowledge  of 
physical  laws,  but  who  have  not  attended  to  the  implication  of 
their  general  characters  and  relations,  the  supposition  is  not  in¬ 
credible  that  there  is  a  tendency  in  the  forces  of  nature  to  a 
permanent  or  persistently  progressive  change  in  the  theatre  of 
their  operations,  and  to  an  ultimate  cessation  of  all  the  partic¬ 
ular  conditions  on  which  their  manifestations  depend.  To  show 
why  this  is  incredible  to  us  would  carry  us  beyond  the  proper 
limits  of  our  subject,  were  it  not  that  our  author  has  speculated 
in  the  same  direction. 

Having  developed  what  he  thinks  to  be  the  true  scientific 
idea  of  progress  in  his  “  Law  of  Evolution,”  Mr.  Spencer  next 
considers  its  relations  to  ultimate  scientific  ideas,  the  ideas  of 
space,  time,  matter,  and  force.  As  evolution  is  change,  and  as 
change,  scientifically  comprehended,  is  comprehended  in  terms 
of  matter,  motion,  and  force,  and  the  conditions  necessary  to 
these,  or  time  and  space,  it  is  necessary  that  evolution  be  fur¬ 
ther  defined  in  its  relations  to  these  ideas.  These  are  only  for¬ 
mulating  terms,  entirely  abstract.  They  imply  no  ontological 
•theory  about  the  nature  of  existence  of  mind  or  matter;  and 
when  Mr.  Spencer  proposes  to  formulate  the  phenomena  of 
mind  as  well  as  those  of  matter  in  terms  of  matter,  motion, 
and  force,  it  is  because  these  ideas  are  the  only  precise  ones  in 
which  the  phenomena  of  change  can  be  defined. 

Mr.  Spencer  is  not  a  materialist.  Materialism  and  spiritual¬ 
ism,  or  psychological  idealism,  are  as  dogmatic  theories  equally 


7  6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


self-contradictory  and  absurd.  Mr.  Spencer  is  neither  a  mate¬ 
rialist  nor  an  idealist;  neither  theist,  atheist,  nor  pantheist. 
All  these  doctrines  are,  he  thinks,  without  sense  or  reason;  and 
the  philosophers  who  invented  them,  and  the  disciples  who  re¬ 
ceived  and  thought  they  understood  them,  were  deceived.  But 
we  are  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  believers,  though  they  may 
be  deceived  about  their  ability  to  comprehend  these  theories 
(for  it  is  easy  to  mistake  meanings),  are  not  deceived  about  the 
motives  or  the  spirit  which  prompts  these  speculations,  and 
which  in  fact  determines  for  each  his  election  of  what  doctrine 
best  suits  his  character.  For  within  the  pale  of  philosophy, 
character  determines  belief,  and  ideas  stand  for  feelings.  We 
receive  the  truths  of  science  on  compulsion.  Nothing  but  ig¬ 
norance  is  able  to  resist  them.  In  philosophy  we  are  free  from 
every  bias,  except  that  of  our  own  characters ;  and  it  therefore 
seems  to  us  becoming  in  a  philosopher,  who  is  solicitous  about 
the  moral  reputation  of  his  doctrines,  and  who  would  avoid 
classification  under  disreputable  categories,  that  he  teach  noth¬ 
ing  which  he  does  not  know,  lest  the  direction  of  his  inquiries 
be  mistaken  for  that  of  his  dispositions.  The  vulgar  who  use 
the  obnoxious  terms,  materialism,  atheism,  pantheism,  do  not 
pretend  to  define  them ;  but  they  somehow  have  a  very  definite 
idea,  or  at  least  a  strong  feeling,  about  the  dangerous  character 
of  such  speculations,  which  appear  none  the  less  reprehensible 
because  inconceivable. 

But  we  must  defer  the  considerations  of  the  moral  character 

* 

of  Mr.  Spencer’s  speculations,  until  we  have  further  examined 
their  scientific  grounds. 

Terms  which  the  real  physicist  knows  how  to  use  as  the 
terms  of  mathematical  formulas,  and  which  were  never  even 
suspected  of  any  heterodox  tendencies,  terms  which  have  been 
of  inestimable  service  both  in  formulating  and  finding  out  the 
secrets  of  nature,  are  appropriated  by  Mr.  Spencer  to  the  fur¬ 
ther  elaboration  of  his  vague  definitions,  and  to  the  abstract 
description  of  as  much  in  real  nature  as  they  may  happen  to 
apply  to.  As  if  an  inventory  of  the  tools  of  any  craft  were  a 
proper  account  of  its  handiwork !  Out  of  mathematical  for¬ 
mulas  these  terms  lose  their  definiteness  and  their  utility. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER . 


77 


They  become  corrupting  and  misleading  ideas.  They  are 
none  the  less  abstract,  but  they  are  less  clear.  They  again 
clothe  themselves  in  circumstance,  though  vaguely.  They  ap¬ 
peal  to  that  indefinite  consciousness  which,  as  Mr.  Spencer  says, 
cannot  be  formulated,  but  in  which  he  thinks  we  have  an  ap¬ 
prehension  of  cause  and  causal  agencies. 

“Though  along  with  the  extension  of  generalizations,  and  concomitant 
integrations  of  conceived  causal  agencies,”  says  Mr.  Spencer,  “the  con¬ 
ceptions  of  causal  agencies  grow  more  indefinite ;  and  though  as  they 
gradually  coalesce  into  a  universal  causal  agency  they  cease  to  be  repre¬ 
sentable  in  thought,  and  are  no  longer  supposed  to  be  comprehensible, 
yet  the  consciousness  of  cause  remains  as  dominant  to  the  last  as  it  was 
at  fix-st,  and  can  never  be  got  rid  of.  The  consciousness  of  cause  can  be 
abolished  only  by  abolishing  consciousness  itself.” 

This  is  quoted  by  himself  from  his  “  First  Principles,”  as  one 
of  his  “reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  philosophy  of  M. 
Comte.”  Though  he  seems  solicitous  to  avoid  all  ontological 
implications  in  his  use  of  scientific  terms,  yet  we  cannot  avoid 
the  impression  of  a  vague  metaphysical  signification  in  his 
speculations,  as  if  he  were  presenting  all  the  parts  of  a  system 
of  materialism  except  the  affirmative  and  negative  copulas. 
These  are  withheld,  because  we  cannot  be  supposed  to  believe 
anything  inconceivable,  as  all  ontological  dogmas  are.  He 
seems  to  lead  us  on  to  the  point  of  requiring  our  assent  to  a 
materialistic  doctrine,  and  then  lets  us  off  on  account  of  the 
infirmities  of  our  minds;  presenting  materialism  to  our  con¬ 
templation  rather  than  to  our  understandings. 

Mr.  Spencer  regards  the  ultimate  ideas  of  science  as  un¬ 
knowable  ;  and  in  a  sense  the  meanings  of  the  abstractest  terms 
are  unknowable,  that  is,  are  not  referable  to  any  notions  more 
abstract,  nor  susceptible  of  sensuous  apprehension  or  represen¬ 
tation  as  such.  But  the  way  to  know  them  is  to  use  them  in 
mathematical  formulas  to  express  precisely  what  we  do  know. 
It  is  true  that  this  cannot  yet  be  done,  except  in  the  physical 
sciences  proper,  and  not  always  with  distinctness  in  these.  It 
is  only  in  astronomy  and  mechanical  physics  that  these  terms 
are  used  with  mathematical  precision.  They  change  their 
meanings,  or  at  least  lose  their  definiteness,  when  we  come  tc 
chemistry  and  physiology. 


?8 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISC  US S 10 NS. 


“The  indestructibility  of  matter,”  “ the  continuity  of  mo 
tion,”  “the  conservation  of  force,”  and  “the  correlation  and 
equivalence  of  forces,”  are  ideas  which  mathematical  and  phys¬ 
ical  science  has  rendered  familiar.  Besides  these,  Mr.  Spencer 
has  analyzed  others,  descriptive  of  the  general  external  char¬ 
acteristics  of  motion;  and  he  continues  with  a  development 
of  what  the  Law  of  Evolution  implies.  To  all  the  ideas  which 
he  adopts  from  science  he  adds  a  new  sense,  or  rather  a  vague¬ 
ness,  so  as  to  make  them  descriptive  of  as  much  as  possible. 
One  of  these  ideas  loses  in  the  process  so  many  of  its  original 
features,  as  well  as  its  name,  that  we  should  not  have  recog¬ 
nized  it  as  the  same,  but  for  Mr.  Spencer’s  justification  of  what 
he  regards  as  a  change  of  nomenclature.  He  prefers  “per¬ 
sistence  of  force”  to  “conservation  of  force,”  because  the  lat¬ 
ter  “implies  a  conservator  and  an  act  of  conserving,”  and  be¬ 
cause  “  it  does  not  imply  the  existence  of  the  force  before  that 
particular  manifestation  of  it  with  which  we  commence.”  Sci¬ 
ence,  we  are  inclined  to  believe,  will  not  adopt  this  emenda¬ 
tion,  because  the  conservation  it  refers  to  is  that  whereby  the 
special  conditions  of  the  production  of  any  mechanical  effect 
in  nature  are  themselves  replaced  by  the  changes  through 
which  this  effect  is  manifested ;  so  that  if  this  effect  ceases  to 
appear  as  a  motion,  it  nevertheless  exists  in  the  altered  antece¬ 
dents  of  motions,  which  may  subsequently  be  developed  in  the 
course  of  natural  changes.  It  is  this  conservation  of  the  con¬ 
ditions  of  motion  by  the  operations  of  nature  through  the  strict¬ 
est  observation  of  certain  mathematical  laws,  that  science  wishes 
to  express.  The  objection  (if  there  be  any)  to  this  phrase  is  in 
the  word  “force.”  This  word  is  used  in  mathematical  me¬ 
chanics  in  three  different  senses,  but  fortunately  they  are 
distinct.  They  are  not  here  fused  together,  as  they  are  by  Mr. 
Spencer,  into  one  vague  expression  of  what  nobody  in  fact 
knpws  anything  about.  There  is  no  danger  of  ambiguities  aris¬ 
ing  from  this  source  in  mathematics.  The  ideas  expressed  by 
this  word  are  perfectly  distinct  and  definable.  The  liability  to 
ambiguity  is  only  when  we  pass  from  mathematical  formulas  to 
sciences,  in  which  the  word  has  more  or  less  of  vagueness  and 
an  ontological  reference.  This  liability  is  somewhat  dimin- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


79 


ished,  at  least  so  far  as  distinct  mathematical  comprehension  is 
concerned,  by  the  use  of  the  phrases,  “conservation  of  mechan¬ 
ical  effect”  or  “the  law  of  power,”  which  are  now  employed 
to  express  the  mathematical  theorem  which  has  as  one  of  its 
corollaries  the  doctrine  that  “perpetual  motion”  is  impossible 
in  the  sense  in  which  practical  mechanics  use  the  words.  This 
theorem  is  deduced  from  the  fundamental  laws  of  motion,  or 
those  transcendental  ideas  and  definitions  which  have  received 
their  proof  or  justification  in  their  ability  to  clear  up  the  confu¬ 
sions  with  which  the  movements  of  nature  fall  upon  the  senses 
and  present  themselves  to  the  undisciplined  understanding. 

The  phrase  “conservation  of  force”  was  adopted  from 
mathematical  mechanics  into  chemical  physics,  with  reference 
to  the  question  of  the  possibility  of  “perpetual  motion”  by 
means  of  those  natural  forces  with  which  chemistry  deals.  The 
impossibility  of  “perpetual  motion,”  or  the  fact  that  “in  the 
series  of  natural  processes  there  is  no  circuit  to  be  found  by 
which  mechanical  force  can  be  gained  without  a  corresponding 
consumption,”  had  been  demonstrated  only  with  reference  to 
the  so-called  “  fixed  forces  ”  of  nature,  or  those  which  depend 
solely  on  the  relative  distances  of  bodies  from  each  other. 
Chemical  forces  are  not  mathematically  comprehended,  and 
are  therefore  utterly  unknown,  save  in  their  effects,  and  their 
laws  are  unknown,  save  in  the  observed  invariable  orders  of 
these  effects.  These  forces  are  merely  hypotheses,  and  hypoth¬ 
eses  which  include  little  or  nothing  that  is  definite  or  profitable 
to  research.  But  mechanical  forces  suggested  to  physicists  a 
problem  perfectly  clear  and  definite.  “  Are  the  laws  of  chem¬ 
ical  forces  also  inconsistent  with  ‘perpetual  motion’?”  “Are 
light,  heat,  electricity,  magnetism,  and  the  force  of  chemical 
transformations,  correlated  with  each  other,  and  with  mechan¬ 
ical  motions  and  forces,  as  these  are  among  themselves?” 
Here  is  something  tangible;  and  the  direction  which  these 
questions  have  given  to  physical  researches  in  recent  times 
mark  out  a  distinct  epoch  in  scientific  progress.  Here  the  an¬ 
swer  could  not  be  found  a  priori ,  as  a  consequent  of  any 
known  or  presumed  universal  laws  of  nature.  Experiment 
must  establish  these  presumptions;  and  it  does  so  with  such 

i  ' 

V 


8o 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


an  overwhelming  amount  of  evidence,  that  they  are  made  the 
grounds  of  prediction,  as  the  law  of  gravity  was  in  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  the  planet  Uranus.  Physicists  have  anticipated,  on 
the  ground  of  the  impossibility  of  perpetual  motion,  such  an 
apparently  remote  fact  as  this,  “that  the  freezing  temperature 
in  water  depends  on  the  pressure  to  which  the  water  is  sub¬ 
jected.”  Experiment  confirms  this  anticipation. 

The  processes  of  such  researches  are  long  and  intricate,  but 
they  are  perfectly  precise  and  definite ;  and  it  is  thus  that  the 
law  of  the  “Conservation  of  Force”  is  made  of  value,  and  not 
by  such  use  as  Mr.  Spencer  is  able  to  make  of  it,  if  indeed 
his  “Persistence  of  Force”  can  be  regarded  as  having  any 
meaning  in  common  with  it.  His  principle  seems  to  us  to 
bear  a  much  closer  resemblance  to  the  old  metaphysical 
“  Principle  of  Causality,”  or  the  impossibility  of  any  change  in 
the  quantity  of  existence  (whatever  this  may  mean) ;  and  it 
also  seems  to  us  to  be  as  profitless. 

Having  developed  his  Faw  of  Evolution  to  maturity,  he  ar¬ 
rives  at  “Equilibration.”  All  evolutions  must  have  an  end, 
and  this  end  is  “  Equilibration.”  Then  there  is  no  longer  any 
tendency  to  “  a  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity,  through  con¬ 
tinuous  differentiations  and  integrations.”  Life  is  balanced. 
The  worlds  are  completed. 

Throughout  this  speculation  the  mechanical  arguments  of 
the  Nebular  Hypothesis  have  been  the  guides  to  Mr.  Spencer’s 
abstractions,  while  the  doctrines  of  embryology  have  furnished 
the  terminology.  Recent  developments  of  this  hypothesis  in 
connection  with  the  theory  of  the  correlations  of  mechanical 
forces  and  heat,  have  afforded  him  a  splendid  opportunity  to 
carry  out  and  illustrate  his  theories,  and  this  opportunity  Mr. 
Spencer  has  not  neglected.  Fully  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
the  Nebular  Hypothesis,  as  well  as  of  the  importance  of  his 
own  Law  of  Evolution,  he  reasons  with  the  earnestness  of 
conviction  and  with  the  blindness  of  zeal ;  and  he  brings  to 
bear  upon  his  theories  the  intense  interest  which  the  recent 
developments  of  physics  are  calculated  to  awaken  concerning 
certain  problems  in  astronomy.  The  source  of  the  sun’s  heat, 
the  origins  of  the  planets  and  their  motions  in  the  solar  system. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


8 1 


the  past  and  future  histories  of  the  earth  and  of  the  universe, — 
all  these  topics  have  an  interest  outside  of  science.  They  ap¬ 
peal  to  the  story-loving,  mythic  instinct  which  willingly  helps 
Science  over  her  difficulties  and  uncertainties.  It  is  desirable 
on  this  account  to  distinguish  as  far  as  possible  between  what 
is  demonstrative  or  scientifically  probable,  and  what  is  im¬ 
aginary  or  poetically  probable,  in  theories  on  these  sub¬ 
jects.  To  do  this  adequately  is  the  work  of  time,  patience, 
and  science,  following  the  methods  of  experimental  philosophy 
rather  than  those  of  Mr.  Spencer.  We  can  now  present  only 
the  elements  of  these  problems,  with  the  impressions  which 
come  from  an  a  prioi'i  distrust  of  cosmological  speculations. 

The  discovery  of  the  constant  relation  of  mechanical  effect 
and  heat,  and  the  determination  of  the  measures  by  which  this 
relation  can  be  mathematically  expressed  in  an  equation,  gave 
at  once,  by  a  simple  computation  with  well-known  astronomical 
data,  results  of  the  most  surprising  and  interesting  character. 
The  mere  motions  of  bodies,  such  as  they  have  in  the  spaces 
of  the  solar  system,  and  such  as  the  sun  is  able  to  produce 
in  bodies  falling  to  it  and  in  the  masses  of  which  it  is  com¬ 
posed  through  their  mutual  attractions,  were  found  to  repre¬ 
sent  vastly  greater  quantities  of  heat  than  could  be  produced 
by  any  known  chemical  agency,  like  combustion,  with  the  same 
quantity  of  matter  of  whatever  kind.  Here  then  was  the  long 
sought  for  origin  of  the  sun’s  heat.  If  the  motions  continually 
produced  and  arrested  in  the  contractions  of  the  sun’s  mass, 
incident  to  its  cooling,  should  only  amount  to  what  would 
diminish  the  sun’s  diameter  by  one  part  in  twenty  millions  in  a 
year,  it  would  be  sufficient  to  produce  all  the  enormous  amount 
of  heat  which  the  sun  has  been  proved  to  radiate  in  that  time. 
If  a  body  falling  from  a  height  not  greater  than  the  known 
limits  of  the  solar  system  should  have  the  motion  it  would  thus 
acquire  arrested  and  dissipated  in  the  form  of  heat  in  the  mass 
of  the  sun,  it  would  also  produce  this  amount  of  heat,  pro¬ 
vided  the  mass  of  the  body  be  to  that  of  the  sun  only  as  one 
to  thirty  millions.  At  least  one-half  of  the  energy  represented 
by  this  heat  would  be  acquired  in  that  part  of  the  fall  between 
the  surface  of  the  sun  and  a  height  not  greater  than  the  dis- 


8  2 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


tance  of  this  surface  from  the  centre ;  and  if  the  body  should 
have  fallen  from  the  greatest  supposable  height,  all  but  about 
one  in  six  thousand  parts  of  this  energy  would  have  been  ac¬ 
quired  within  the  known  limits  of  the  solar  system,  and  all 
but  about  one  in  two  hundred  parts  within  the  limits  of  the 
earth’s  orbit.  To  explain  the  origin  of  the  sun’s  heat,  two 
theories  have,  therefore,  been  advanced.  One  in  accordance 
with  the  Nebular  Hypothesis  explains  it  as  arising -from  the 
falling  in  upon  itself  of  the  matter  which  composes  the  mass 
of  the  sun  and  an  arrest  of  this  motion  resulting  in  heat  and  a 
continuous  contraction  of  the  sun’s  diameter,  but  without  any 
change  in  the  sun’s  mass.  The  other,  on  the  evidence  there 
is  of  the  existence  of  innumerable  small  bodies  moving  in 
irregular  and  eccentric  orbits  through  the  spaces  of  the  solar 
system,  supposes  the  frequent  fall  of  such  bodies  to  the  sun,  and 
the  arrest  of  their  motions  in  its  mass,  as  the  origin  of  its  heat. 

What  shall  decide  between  these  two  theories  ?  At  first 
sight,  the  fact  that  the  mass  of  the  sun  does  not  change  so  fast 
as  the  second  theory  appears  to  require,  as  is  evinced  by  the 
fact  that  there  is  not  a  corresponding  change  in  the  attractive 
energy  of  the  sun,  and  in  the  resultant  periods  of  revolution 
in  the  earth  and  other  planets,  seems  to  refute  this  theory,  and 
to  decide  in  favor  of  the  first.  On  the  other  hand,  the  second 
theory  appeals  to  its  foundation  in  independently  probable 
evidence  which  the  first  does  not  possess,  and  to  another 
theoretical  consideration  which  explains  away  this  difficulty, 
namely,  the  consideration  that  only  one-half  of  the  problem 
has  yet  been  attended  to ;  for  on  either  hypothesis  we  should 
explain,  not  only  how  the  sun’s  heat  is  produced,  but  also 
what  becomes  of  the  mechanical  energy  which  this  heat  repre¬ 
sents. 

Dr.  Mayer,  who  advanced  the  second  or  the  meteoric  hy¬ 
pothesis,  is  content  to  affirm  that  the  matter  of  the  sun  is 
dissipated  also,  as  well  as  its  heat,  through  the  agency  of  its 
heat ;  so  that  its  mass  remains  sensibly  constant.  This  addi¬ 
tional  hypothesis  has  in  itself  about  the  same  character  which 
the  Nebular  Hypothesis  possesses.  So  far,  therefore,  the  two 
explanations  are  balanced.  Both  explain  the  origin  of  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


83 


sun’s  heat  and  the  constancy  of  its  mass  by  the  union  of  facts 
independently  probable  with  an  hypothesis  made  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  explanation  but  not  inconsistent  with  observed  facts. 
The  one  theory  adopts  the  hypothetical  contraction  of  the 
sun’s  diameter,  which  observation  has  been  unable  to  test, 
with  the  observed  fact  that  the  sun’s  mass  does  not  increase  so 
much  as  the  other  theory  seems  to  require.  And  the  other 
theory  avoids  this  requirement  by  the  hypothesis  of  the  dis¬ 
sipation  of  the  matter  of  the  sun,  united  with  the  independ¬ 
ently  probable  fact  that  bodies  are  continually  falling  to  the 
sun’s  surface,  just  as  they  are  continually  falling  to  that  of  the 
earth,  only  in  vastly  greater  numbers. 

It  is  enough  to  say  of  the  Nebular  Hypothesis,  that  no  physi¬ 
cist  of  repute  regards  it  as  having  that  degree  of  independent 
probability  which  warrants  its  use  as  a  ground  of  probable  pre¬ 
diction,  or  as  affording  a  justification  of  any  new  or  implied  hy¬ 
pothesis.  But  the  uncertainty  as  to  which  of  the  two  mechan¬ 
ical  theories  of  the  origin  of  the  sun’s  heat  is  true,  should  not 
for  a  moment  be  compared  to  the  uncertainty  of  the  Nebular 
Hypothesis.  For  it  is  almost  certain  that  either  one  or  the  other 
is  the  true  explanation ;  and,  indeed,  they  are  not  essentially 
inconsistent  with  each  other.  Both  may  be  true ;  or  rather  a 
third  theory,  combining  both,  may  have  a  probability  superior 
to  that  of  either.  If  it  be  true  that  the  sun  is  a  body  at  a  mini¬ 
mum  of  temperature,  which  on  account  of  its  enormous  mass 
and  attractive  energy  is  able,  through  the  contractions  due  to 
its  loss  of  heat,  to  make  compensation  for  its  radiations  at  the 
expense  of  its  dimensions,  then  it  follows  that  this  temperature 
is  also  a  maximum  one,  and  that  an  increase  of  the  total  heat 
of  the  sun  by  the  fall  of  bodies  to  it  will  not  increase  its  temper¬ 
ature,  but  rather  its  dimensions ;  its  temperature  Being  kept 
uniform,  much  as  the  energies  and  impulsions  of  an  engine  are 
reduced  to  uniformity  by  the  inertia  of  its  fly-wheel  and  that  of 
the  bodies  on  the  resistances  of  which  its  energies  are  expended. 

But  on  what  are  the  energies  of  the  sun  expended  ?  What 
becomes  of  its  radiations  ?  Mr.  Spencer  speaks  in  his  vague 
way  and  in  his  dialect  of  the  mechanical  processes  of  the  solar 
system  as  constituting  “  Evolution  where  there  is  a  predomi- 


84 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


nant  integration  of  Matter  and  disintegration  of  Motion.”  He 

\ 

regards  the  laws  of  change  as  causes  of  “Dissolution  where 
there  is  a  predominant  integration  of  Motion  and  disintegra¬ 
tion  of  Matter.”  What  in  the  language  of  physics  does  all  this 
mean  ?  We  suppose  it  means  that  the  parts  of  a  body  or  a 
system  of  bodies  are  brought  nearer  each  other  on  the  whole 
by  a  loss  of  internal  motions,  whether  these  be  in  the  form  of 
heat  or  of  massive  motions ;  and  that  a  system  or  a  body  is  ex¬ 
panded  on  the  whole  by  an  addition  to  its  internal  motions  or 
the  relative  motions  of  its  parts.  These  are  important  mechan¬ 
ical  theorems,  but  their  deduction  and  extension  by  generaliza¬ 
tion  necessitates  the  scholium,  that  all  such  “Evolutions”  are 
attended  by  corresponding  “  Dissolutions.”  Motion  is  the  mo¬ 
tion  of  something,  though  Mr.  Spencer  seems  to  speak  of  it  as 
capable  of  existing  by  itself.  Motion  may  grow  less  or  cease 
in  a  body  or  a  system  without  being  lost  from  it,  but  in  this 
case  it  is  represented  by  an  expansion  of  the  body  or  the  sys¬ 
tem.  The  motions  of  the  solar  system  are  continually  varying, 
becoming  greater  or  less  according  as  the  bodies  of  the  system 
are  approaching  or  receding  from  each  other  on  the  whole. 
But  motions  really  lost  from  one  body  or  system  of  bodies  are 
taken  up  by  others,  and  those  which  are  really  gained  are  ac¬ 
quired  from  others.  This  is  so  universally  true,  that  it  includes 
the  motions  of  living  as  well  as  of  so-called  dead  matter.  The 
motions  of  heat  and  of  mechanical  energy  in  the  living  body 
are  necessarily  derived  from  the  motions  and  antecedent  special 
conditions  of  motion  which  are  contained  in  the  sunbeam  and 
in  the  food  through  which  the  living  bodies  of  plants  and  an¬ 
imals  are  formed.  But  while  in  these  bodies,  during  their 
growths  and  throughout  their  lifetimes,  there  is  a  well-marked 
order  and  harmony  in  such  changes,  the  definitions  of  which 
are  the  proper  definitions  of  life,  yet  such  an  order  is  not  nec¬ 
essarily  implied  in  the  universal  laws  of  change.  All  that  is 
necessarily  implied  in  these  is  balance  and  ultimate  compensa¬ 
tions, — compensations  in  times  and  spaces,  which  are  wholly 
indefinite,  and  in  concrete  series  of  phenomena,  which  may  or 
may  not  be  simple  orders  or  intelligible  as  wholes,  but  over 
which  it  is  certain  an  elementary  order  reigns  supreme. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


The  principle  of  the  conservation  of  mechanical  energy  in 
and  through  the  operations  by  which  it  is  manifested,  is  the 
expression  of  this  elementary  order,  from  which,  however, 
nothing  can  be  deduced  a  priori  in  regard  to  any  class  or  con¬ 
crete  series  of  phenomena  in  nature.  The  positions  of  the 
planets  are  deducible  a  posteriori  from  a  sufficient  number  ol 
particular  facts  in  this  concrete  series,  and  by  means  of  elemen¬ 
tary  laws.  But  while  such  successions  as  life  exhibits  involve 
the  law  of  the  conservation  of  force,  so  far  as  they  involve  any 
changes  in  matter,  yet  no  characteristic  features  in  such  suc¬ 
cessions  are  deducible  from  this  law,  notwithstanding  Mr. 
Spencer’s  asserted  demonstrations  of  the  contrary.  Life  must 
still  be  studied  from  without.  Its  principle  is  not  yet  discov¬ 
ered. 

Concentration  of  matter  with  a  transfer  of  its  internal  mo¬ 
tions  to  other  matter,  and  separation  of  matter  by  motions 
received  from  without,  are  both  exemplified  in  growth.  Mr. 
Spencer  calls  the  first  “  Evolution,”  but  the  growth  of  plants 
is  really  characterized  by  the  second;  for  though  there  is  a 
concentration  of  carbon  in  the  tissues  of  the  plant,  yet  the  me¬ 
chanical  operation  by  which  this  is  effected  is  really  a  sepa¬ 
ration  of  the  carbon  from  oxygen  by  the  mechanical  energy 
of  the  sunbeam,  which,  coming  in  from  without,  overcomes  the 
forces  of  chemical  aggregation  in  carbonic  acid.  There  is  here 
an  aggregation  of  matter  so  far  as  mass  or  weight  is  concerned, 
but  none  so  far  as  the  chemical  forces  are  concerned.  In 
respect  to  these  forces,  vegetation  is  a  dispersion  of  matter 
through  an  accession  of  forces ;  and  combustion  or  consump¬ 
tion  as  food  in  animal  bodies  is  a  dispersion  of  forces  with  a 
concentration  of  matter,  though  so  far  as  mass  or  weight  is 
concerned  this  matter  is  also  dispersed  in  the  form  of  carbonic 
acid  gas. 

Dispersion  and  concentration  are  not  to  be  mechanically 
measured  by  mere  distances  in  space,  even  in  the  case  of  grav¬ 
itation  ;  for,  as  we  have  said,  a  body  falling  from  the  limits  of 
the  solar  system  acquires  on  reaching  the  surface  of  the  sun  all 
but  one  in  six  thousand  parts  of  the  energy  which  it  could 
acquire  in  falling  from  the  height  of  the  remotest  star.  Thf 


86  PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 

immense  distances  by  which  the  stars  are  separated  from  each 
other  are  not,  therefore,  the  representant  of  a  much  greater 
energy  than  that  which  the  dimensions  of  the  solar  system  rep¬ 
resent,  though  these  become  as  nothing  in  respect  to  mere  dis¬ 
tance.  Gravitation  is  a  feeble  force  except  in  close  proximity, 
and  there  is  some  degree  of  probability  in  the  speculation 
which  regards  it  as  really  a  resultant  of  the  forces  to  which  it 
seems  to  give  rise.  Whether  this  speculation  be  true  or  not, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  the  law  of  gravity  is  exact,  or  more 
than  approximately  true,  or  that  the  force  of  gravity  subsists 
at  all  between  the  remotest  stars.  That  it  plays  but  an  insig¬ 
nificant  part  in  determining  the  distributions  and  motions  of 
stars  and  systems  of  stars  is  highly  probable,  since  these  are 
but  imperfectly  accounted  for,  if  at  all,  by  its  law.  The  mo¬ 
tions  of  the  closely  proximate  members  of  binary  stars  are  in 
fact  the  only  ones  in  sidereal  astronomy  which  have  been 
brought  under  the  law  of  gravity.  Still  it  would  be  contrary 
to  the  postulate  of  science,  or  to  any  sound  principle  of  philoso¬ 
phizing,  to  regard  the  distribution  of  the  stars  as  in  any  abso¬ 
lute  sense  fortuitous ;  for  in  this  also,  as  in  nature  generally, 
there  is  that  vaguely  discerned  order  which  warrants  the  postu¬ 
late  of  science,  and  its  efforts  to  decipher  what  it  has  a  right  to 
presume,  namely,  at  least  an  elementary  order. 

We  hold  the  opinion  that  the  mechanical  theory  of  heat, 
when  it  comes  to  be  applied  in  earnest  to  the  problems  of 
dynamics  in  sidereal  astronomy,  will  be  rewarded  with  triumphs 
not  inferior  to  those  which  the  law  of  gravitation  has  achieved 
in  the  solar  system ;  and  that  the  distribution  of  the  stars  will 
be  accounted  for,  not  on  the  hypothesis  of  simple  attractive  or 
repulsive  forces,  but  by  the  distributions  of  matter  and  heat 
through  the  interstellar  spaces,  and  by  their  actions  and  re¬ 
actions,  not  as  centres  of  simple  forces,  but  as  the  receptacles 
of  concrete  masses  and  motions,  and  as  the  sources  of  diffused 
motions  and  matters,  none  of  which  can  ever  be  lost  or  de¬ 
stroyed  ;  that  their  motions  will  be  found  to  result  principally 
from  those  of  the  medium  of  diffused  materials,  from  which 
they  are  aggregated  precipitates,  and  into  which  they  are  evap¬ 
orated  by  heat. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


87 


This  is  at  present  only  an  hypothesis,  but  it  is  not  teleolog¬ 
ical  in  any  sense  of  the  term.  The  most  obvious  objection  to 
it  is  the  theory  that  there  is  “  a  universal  tendency  in  nature 
to  the  dissipation  of  mechanical  energy,”  a  theory  well  founded, 
nay,  demonstrated,*  if  we  only  follow  this  energy  as  far  as  the 
present  limits  of  science  extend.  But  to  a  true  Aristotelian 
this  theory,  so  far  from  suggesting  a  dramatic  denouement ,  such 
as  the  ultimate  death  of  nature,  only  propounds  new  problems. 
What  becomes  of  the  sun’s  dynamic  energy,  and  whence  do 
the  bodies  come  which  support  this  wasting  power  ? 

The  earth  is  composed  of  masses  mechanically  as  well  as 
chemically  heterogeneous.  The  forces  of  chemical  aggrega¬ 
tion  overcome  this  confusion  to  a  limited  extent,  through  the 
agency  of  internal  heat  and  aqueous  solution,  in  the  formation 
of  metallic  deposits  and  crystalline  segregations,  but  only  to  a 
limited  extent.  Long  persistent  mechanical  actions  of  air  and 
water,  and  vegetable  aggregations,  produce  a  similar  mechanical 
homogeneity  in  geological  deposits.  Still  the  materials  of  the 
earth’s  surface  exist  as  if  they  had  been  thrown  together  with¬ 
out  any  determinable  order, — as  if  the  earth  and  similar  bodies 
had  been  compounded  of  the  materials  of  smaller  masses  fall¬ 
ing  together,  and  gradually  wrought  by  geological  forces  into 
the  little  order  they  present.  Materials  continue  to  arrive  at 
the  earth’s  surface, — in  how  great  quantities  it  is  at  present 
impossible  to  form  a  trustworthy  estimate.  Are  not  all  large 
bodies  so  formed  ?  But  how  are  the  smaller  bodies  formed  ? 
The  comets,  which  are  more  numerous  “in  the  heavens  than 
fish  in  the  ocean,”  and  the  meteors,  more  numerous  than  the 
sands  of  the  desert, — how  are  they  formed  ?  Our  answer  is 
an  hypothesis.  They  are  formed  by  chemical  and  mechanical 
aggregation  from  matters  diffused  throughout  space  by  the 
mechanical  energy  of  the  sun ;  and  by  their  fall  they  restore 
this  energy.  This  would  complete  the  round  of  nature,  but 
the  theory  is  not  thereby  demonstrated.  Scientific  demon¬ 
stration  is  slow  and  painful,  the  work  of  time  and  patience. 
All  that  can  now  be  presented  are  problems,  but  these  are  sci¬ 
entific  problems.  They  are  concerned  with  the  details  of  an 


:  *  By  Professor  W7illiam  Thomson. 


88 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


elementary  order,  which  science  has  a  right  to  presume,  and 
not  with  the  abstract  features  of  an  external  order,  which 
science  has  no  right  to  presume. 

Following  the  publication  of  his  “First  Principles,”  there  ap¬ 
peared  a  short  essay  by  Mr.  Spencer  on  “The  Classification  of 
the  Sciences ;  ”  to  which  are  added  his  “  Reasons  for  dissenting 
from  the  Philosophy  of  M.  Comte.”  We  had  a  little  hope  that 
here  at  least  Mr.  Spencer’s  reputation  for  philosophical  analysis, 
and  for  an  extensive  knowledge  of  the  sciences,  would  stand 
proof,  and  be  confirmed  by  a  valuable  result.  Instead  of  this, 
we  find  nothing  deserving  attention  from  any  one  who  does 
not  find  in  his  “First  Principles”  the  germs  of  a  great  philos¬ 
ophy,  except  bad  criticism,  a  perverted  terminology,  and 
fanciful  discriminations. 

Nearly  all  philosophers  are  agreed,  we  believe,  in  assigning 
logic  and  mathematics  to  a  distinct  division  of  the  sciences, 
and  these  have  with  great  propriety  been  denominated  formal 
sciences,  as  distinguished  from  the  real  or  material  sciences. 
This  propriety  is  quite  independent  of  any  metaphysical  or 
critical  theory  which  we  may  have  about  the  origin  or  intrinsic 
character  of  mathematical  and  logical  truth.  Whether  we 
regard  the  truths  of  formal  science  as  really  universal  or  not, 
their  presumed  universality  is  what  determines  their  peculiar 
character  and  functions  in  science  generally.  But  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer  seems  more  solicitous  to  avoid  an  implication  of  a  meta¬ 
physical  doctrine,  which  these  terms  have,  than  to  avail  himself 
of  their  real  scientific  utility ;  and  he  uses,  instead  of  them, 
the  ambiguous  and  otherwise  objectionable  terms  “abstract” 
and  “concrete,”  and  is  obliged,  consequently,  to  define  and 
defend  these  in  the  sense  in  which  he  proposes  to  use  them. 
Truths  that  have  exemplification  in  nearly  every  class  of  facts 
of  which  we  have  precis*e  knowledge,  the  axioms  and  postulates 
of  which  are  implied,  indeed,  in  all  knowledge,  may  relatively 
to  all  other  truths  be  properly  regarded  as  a  priori  and  formal 
or  as  the  moulds  into  which  these  truths  are  cast.  It  may  be, 
as  Mr.  Spencer  thinks,  that  these  truths  are  obtained  by  ab¬ 
straction  alone,  from  our  experience  of  things;  nevertheless,  to 
make  any  reference  in  a  classification  to  this  circumstance  is 


THE  PHIL  0  SO  PHY  OF  HE  PEER  T  SPENCER.  8  9 

to  sacrifice  the  proper  objects  of  a  classification  to  an  extrinsic 
object,  and  is  also  open  to  the  objection  which  seems  to  have 
prevailed  with  him,  though  he  makes  no  explicit  reference  to  it, 
against  the  more  generally  received  terms  “formal”  and  “ma¬ 
terial.”  “Formal”  implies  precisely  what  Mr.  Spencer  means 
by  wholly  abstract,  and  “material”  what  he  means  by  wholly 
concrete;  but  he  uses  the  unqualified  terms  “abstract”  and 
“concrete”  in  these  extreme  senses.  He  gets  confused  about 
the  distinction  of  “abstract”  and  “general,”  and  thinks  M 
Comte  and  M.  Littre  have  confounded  them. 

According  to  the  most  authentic  usage,  “abstract”  and 
“general,”  though  not  the  same,  are  not  antithetical,  as  Mr. 
Spencer  would  have  them  to  be.  He  says:  “Abstractness 
means  detachment  from  the  incidents  of  particular  cases.  Gen¬ 
erality  means  manifestation  in  numerous  cases.”  Total  de¬ 
tachment  he  means,  for  he  uses  “abstract”  and  “concrete”  as 
exclusive  contraries.  In  this  use,  however,  Mr.  Spencer  is  not 
alone;  for  the  character  of  the  process  of  abstraction,  says 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  has  “been  overlooked  by  philosophers, 
insomuch  that  they  have  opposed  the  terms  concrete  and  ab¬ 
stract  as  exclusive  contraries.”  But  no  philosopher  before 
Mr.  Spencer  has  attempted  to  establish  any  opposition  between 
“abstract”  and  “general;”  for  though  the  “abstract”  does  not 
'  imply  generality,  yet  generality  is  dependent  on  abstraction. 
“ Manifestation  in  numerous  cases”  is  the  manifestation  of 
what  ? — we  would  inquire  of  Mr.  Spencer.  Of  anything  but 
what  must  be  obtained  by  abstraction  ?  And  yet  he  claims  that 
his  use  of  the  words  “abstract,”  “concrete,”  and  “general”  is 
the  correct  one.  M.  Littre’s  definition  of  abstractness  as  “sub¬ 
jective  generality,”  does  not  appear  to  us  a  very  happy  one, 
but  it  is  vastly  superior  to  his  critic’s  definitions. 

In  designating  by  the  terms  “abstract,”  “abstract-concrete,” 
and  “concrete”  the  divisions  of  the  sciences  which  the  words 
“formal,”  “mixed,”  and  “material”  have  hitherto  denoted, 
Mr.  Spencer  has  only  confused  a  subject  already  possessed  of 
an  adequately  precise  nomenclature.  The  presumed  univer¬ 
sality  of  mathematical  and  logical  truth,  the  entirely  empirical 
generality  of  merely  descriptive  sciences,  and  the  union  of  these 


9° 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


kinds  of  truth  in  general  physics,  are  properly  connoted  by  the 
terms  already  in  use. 

In  Mr.  Spencer’s  subdivisions  of  mathematics  he  has  given 
a  prominence  to  “Descriptive  Geometry”  which  might  be 
regarded  as  arising  from  the  partiality  of  the  civil  engineer  for 
a  branch  of  his  own  art,  were  it  not  that  he  says : 

“I  was  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  this  as  a  separate  division  of 
mathematics,  until  it  'was  described  to  me  by  Mr.  Hirst,  whom  I  have 
also  to  thank  for  pointing  out  the  omission  of  the  subdivision  ‘Kine¬ 
matics.’  It  was  only  when  seeking  to  affiliate  and  define  ‘Descriptive 
Geometry  ’  that  I  reached  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  negatively-quan- 
titative  mathematics,  as  well  as  a  positively-quantitative  mathematics.  In 
explanation  of  the  term  negatively-quantitative,  it  will  suffice  to  instance 
the  proposition  that  certain  three  lines  will  meet  in  a  point,  as  a  negative¬ 
ly-quantitative  proposition ;  since  it  asserts  the  absence  of  any  quantity 
of  space  between  their  intersections.  Similarly,  the  assertion  that  certain 
three  points  will  always  fall  in  a  straight  line  is  negatively-quantitative  ; 
since  the  conception  of ’a  straight  line  implies  the  negation  of  any  lateral 
quantity  or  deviation.” 

The  propositions  selected  by  Mr.  Spencer  to  illustrate  what 
he  calls  “Descriptive  Geometry”  are  by  no  means  peculiar  to 
or  characteristic  of  the  art  to  which  mathematicians  have  given 
this  name.  In  the  most  elaborate  and  extensive  treatises  no 
more  is  claimed  for  this  art  than  that  it  is  an  account  in  a  sci¬ 
entific  order  of  certain  methods  of  geometrical  construction, 
useful  in  engineering  and  architecture,  but  inferior  in  scientific 
extension  even  to  trigonometry,  to  which  Mr.  Spencer  does 
not  deign  to  descend.  It  is  possible  that  Mr.  Spencer  has  in 
mind  certain  propositions  in  the  “  Higher  Geometry  ”  concern¬ 
ing  relations  of  position  and  direction  in  points  and  lines ;  but 
these  cannot  be  made  to  stand  alone  or  independently  of  di¬ 
mensional  properties,  and  if  they  could,  they  would  be  as  ap¬ 
propriately  named  “qualitative”  mathematics  as  “negatively- 
quantitative.”  In  short,  this  is  the  most  flagrant  application  of 
“  the  principle  of  contraries  ”  in  classification  which  has  ever 
come  to  our  notice.  If  Mr.  Spencer  proposes  to  select  from 
mathematics  all  positively-quantitative  problems  and  proposi¬ 
tions  for  one  branch,  and  all  negatively-quantitative  ones  for 
the  other,  he  must  reconstruct,  if  he  can,  the  whole  science, 
and  the  question  of  terminology  will  then  be  a  question  be¬ 
tween  him  and  his  brothers  in  his  own  craft. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


91 


Having  treated  first  in  order  the  second  part  of  Mr.  Spencer’s 
‘‘First  Principles,”  which  comprises  his  “Laws  of  the  Know- 
able,”  we  now  turn  to  the  consideration  of  his  doctrine  of 
“  the  Unknowable,”  and  his  position  before  the  religious  world. 

This  position  has  been  greatly  misunderstood,  and  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer  himself  has  contributed  much  to  the  misunderstanding. 
He  has  appeared  as  a  champion  for  what  is  sound  m  the  older 
philosophy,  and  one  of  his  avowed  objects  is  to  reconcile  the 
truths  of  religion  with  those  of  science.  He  is  anxious  not  to 
be  thought  a  positivist,  and  he  publishes  as  an  appendix  to  his 
“First  Principles”  a  response  to  his  reviewer  in  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes,  to  show  that  he  is  not  a  positivist  or  a  followei 
of  M.  Comte. 

It  requires  only  a  little  thoughtful  attention  to  the  specula¬ 
tions  of  Mr.  Spencer  and  M.  Comte  to  see  that  they  are  radi¬ 
cally  unlike,  not  only  in  the  details  of  doctrine,  but  in  their  os¬ 
tensible  aims.  The  religious  world,  however,  though  perhaps 
a  little  too  trusting  and  a  little  dull  of  thought,  has  very  acute 
feelings,  and  a  fine  sagacity  in  apprehending  the  religious  drift 
of  a  system  of  philosophy.  It  began  to  have  suspicions,  but  it 
was,  nevertheless,  anxious  to  see  the  truths  of  science  recon¬ 
ciled  with  those  of  religion,  and  so  it  has  continued  to  listen  to 
Mr.  Spencer. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  earnestness  and  moral  honesty 
of  Mr.  Spencer’s  writings.  He  is  conscious  of  a  generous  pur¬ 
pose,  and  is  actuated  by  the  modern  form  of  religious  sentiment, 
— moral  idealism,  or  a  belief  in  the  moral  perfectibility  of  things 
in  general.  He  only  lacks  a  distinct  consciousness  of  his  exact 
position  with  reference  to  older  forms  of  religious  sentiment. 
He  imagines  that  his  philosophy  can  conciliate  these  also. 
This  conciliation  is  effected,  he  thinks,  by  presenting  the  un¬ 
knowable  as  a  subject  of  contemplation, — the  abstract  unknow¬ 
able,  not  an  entity  or  a  subject  for  propositions  and  beliefs. 
Beliefs  about  the  unknowable  are  absurd,  thinks  Mr.  Spencer. 
It  is  only  in  the  existence  of  the  unknowable  as  implied  in  the 
existence  and  limits  of  the  knowable  that  we  can  believe,  and 
this  becomes  more  and  more  distinct  as  the  knowable  becomes 
more  distinct  in  its  conditions  and  limits. 


92 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


“Thus  the  consciousness  of  an  Inscrutable  Power  manifested  to  us 
through  all  phenomena  has  been  growing  ever  clearer,  and  must  eventu¬ 
ally  be  freed  from  its  imperfections.  The  certainty  that  on  the  one  hand 
such  a  Power  exists,  while  on  the  other  hand  its  nature  transcends  intui¬ 
tion  and  is  beyond  imagination,  is  the  certainty  towards  which  intelligence 
has  from  the  first  been  progressing.  To  this  conclusion  science  inevitably 
arrives  as  it  reaches  its  confines  ;  while  to  this  conclusion  religion  is  ir¬ 
resistibly  driven  by  criticism.  And  satisfying  as  it  does  the  demands  of 
the  most  rigorous  logic  at  the  same  time  that  it  gives  the  religious  senti¬ 
ment  the  widest  possible  sphere  of  action,  it  is  the  conclusion  we  are 
bound  to  accept  without  reserve  or  qualification. 

“Some  do  indeed  allege  that  though  the  Ultimate  Cause  of  things  can¬ 
not  really  be  thought  of  by  us  as  having  specified  attributes,  it  is  yet  in¬ 
cumbent  upon  us  to  assert  these  attributes.  Though  the  forms  of  our 
consciousness  are  such  that  the  Absolute  cannot  in  any  manner  or  degree 
be  brought  within  them,  we  are  nevertheless  told  that  we  must  represent 
the  Absolute  to  ourselves  under  these  forms.  As  writes  Mr.  Mansel  in 
the  work  from  which  I  have  already  quoted  largely,  ‘It  is  our  duty  then 
to  think  of  God  as  personal ;  and  it  is  our  duty  to  believe  that  he  is  infi¬ 
nite.’ 

“  That  this  is  not  the  conclusion  here  adopted  needs  hardly  be  said. 
If  there  be  any  meaning  in  the  foregoing  arguments,  duty  requires  us 
neither  to  affirm  or  deny  personality.  Our  duty  is  to  submit  ourselves 
with  all  humility  to  the  established  limits  of  our  intelligence,  and  not  per¬ 
versely  to  rebel  against  them.  Let  those  who  can  believe  that  there  is 
eternal  war  set  between  our  intellectual  faculties  and  our  moral  obligations. 
I  for  one  admit  no  such  radical  vice  in  the  constitution  of  things. 

“This,  which  to  most  will  seem  an  essentially  irreligious  position,  is 
an  essentially  religious  one, — nay,  is  the  religious  one  to  which,  as  already 
shown,  all  others  are  but  approximations.” 

We  are  inclined  to  think,  nevertheless,  that  the  older  forms 
of  religious  sentiment,  instead  of  being  satisfied  with  this,  and 
accepting  it  in  lack  of  a  better  reconciliation,  will  resort  rather 
to  formularies  and  the  fine  arts.  Religious  sentiments  are  es¬ 
sentially  constructive.  They  must  have  propositions,  or  some¬ 
thing  to  believe, — something  to  give  entire,  free,  and  hearty 
assent  to.  Strings  of  abstract  incomprehensible  terms,  with  the 
copulas  all  left  out, — nothing  to  believe  in  except  our  own  ig¬ 
norance  (however  respectable  this  may  be), — will  never  do.  II 
thought  cannot  furnish  the  copulas,  feeling  can  and  will. 

But,  we  must  repeat  that  the  philosophy  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton  went  as  far  in  the  direction  of  empiricism  as  was 
possible  without  renouncing  the  interests  to  which  philosophy 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


93 


has  always  been  devoted.  Hamilton’s  doctrine  aimed  only 
at  this, — to  show  that  unbelief  or  negative  dogmatism  was  un¬ 
founded,  and  to  open  the  way  for  the  authority  of  religious 
feeling. 

Mr.  Mansel,  correctly  apprehending  the  drift  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton’s  doctrine,  elaborated  it  still  further,  and  supplied 
what  was  wanting  to  make  it  a  religious  philosophy,  namely, 
the  authority  of  religious  feeling ;  but  it  was  the  authority  of 
the  religious  feelings  of  his  own  sect,  of  course.  This  move¬ 
ment,  apparently  in  behalf  of  the  Established  Church,  roused 
great  opposition  to  the  doctrines  of  Hamilton  on  the  part  of 
dissenting  theologians.  They  attacked  what  had  been  before 
called  in  question,  the  empirical  doctrines  to  which,  while  ad¬ 
mitting  and  defending  them  theoretically,  Hamilton  opposed 
what  is  peculiarly  his  own  philosophy,  as  a  practical  defense  of 
religion.  But  any  other  sectarians  were  just  as  competent  to 
supply  the  defects  of  Hamilton’s  philosophy  as  Mr.  Mansel. 
They  had  only  to  advance  the  authority  of  their  religious  feel¬ 
ings  into  the  vacant  place.  Controversy  would  have  gone  on 
just  as  before.  Only  the  irreligious  would  have  been  excluded 
from  the  field.  But  the  vacant  place  was  historically  preoc¬ 
cupied  by  Mr.  Mansel,  and  it  was  thought  necessary  by  the 
others  to  carry  the  whole  position. 

Thus  religious  controversy  blinded  both  the  friends  and  the 
foes  of  religious  philosophy  in  regard  to  the  true  scope  and  po¬ 
sition  of  Sir  William  Hamilton’s  doctrine.  He  has  come  to 
be  regarded  by  both  parties  as  the  great  modern  champion  of 
philosophical  empiricism,  whereas  he  only  cited  it  against 
Cousin  and  the  German  rationalists,  and  proposed  as  his  own 
contribution  to  philosophy  that  which  is  regarded  by  Mr. 
Spencer  as  a  defect  and  an  inconsistency  in  his  philosophy. 

“  The  Conditioned,”  says  Hamilton,  “is  a  mean  between  two  extremes 
two  inconditionates,  exclusive  of  each  other,  neither  of  which  can  be  con - 
ceived  as  possible ,  but  of  which,  on  the  principles  of  contradiction  and  ex¬ 
cluded  middle,  one  must  be  admitted  as  necessary.  On  this  opinion, 
therefore,  reason  is  shown  to  be  weak,  but  not  deceitful.  The  mind  is 
not  represented  as  conceiving  two  propositions  subversive  of  each  other 
as  equally  possible ;  but  only  as  unable  to  understand  as  possible  either 
of  two  extremes,  one  of  which,  however,  on  the  ground  of  their  mutual 


94 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


repugnance,  it  is  compelled  to  recognize  as  true.  We  are  thus  taught  the 
salutary  lesson,  that  the  capacity  of  thought  is  not  to  be  constituted  into 
the  measure  of  existence  ;  and  are  warned  from  recognizing  the  domain  of 
our  knowledge  as  necessarily  co-extensive  with  the  horizon  of  our  faith. 
And  by  a  wonderful  revelation  we  are  thus,  in  the  very  consciousness  of 
our  inability  to  conceive  aught  above  the  relative  and  finite,  inspired  with 
a  belief  in  the  existence  of  something  unconditioned  beyond  the  sphere  of 
all  comprehensible  reality.” 

Of  this  passage,  in  which  Sir  William  Hamilton  first  stated 
his  own  peculiar  doctrine,  though  less  clearly  than  in  his  subse¬ 
quent  writings,  Mr.  Spencer  says  : 

“By  the  laws  of  thought,  as  Sir  William  Hamilton  has  interpreted 
them,  he  finds  himself  forced  to  the  conclusion,  that  our  consciousness  of 
the  absolute  is  a  pure  negation.  He  nevertheless  finds  that  there  does 
exist  in  consciousness  an  irresistible  conviction  of  the  real  ‘existence  of 
something  unconditioned.’  And  he  gets  over  the  inconsistency  by  speak¬ 
ing  of  this  conviction  as  a  ‘wonderful  revelation,’  ‘a belief’  with  which 
we  are  ‘inspired’;  thus  apparently  hinting  that  it  is  supernaturally  at 
variance  with  the  laws  of  thought.  [!]  Mr.  Mansel  is  betrayed  into  alike 
inconsistency,” — 

which  Mr.  Spencer  proceeds  to  point  out. 

Strange  inconsistency  indeed,  if  it  be  true,  between  that 
which  is  mistaken  by  his  critic  as  the  essence  of  his  philosophy, 
and  that  which,  being  the  real  essence,  is  regarded  as  an  incon¬ 
sistency.  Supposing  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  Mr.  Mansel 
are  really  arguing  in  the  interests  of  empiricism,  he  tries  to  help 
them  out,  and  supply  another  proof  of  “the  relativity  of  all 
knowledge;”  yet  he  finds  in  some  of  the  statements  of  his 
friends  an  implication  of  “  a  grave  error.”  He  thinks  they  deny 
by  implication  that  we  can  “  rationally  affirm  the  positive  exis¬ 
tence  of  anything  beyond  phenomena ;  ”  whereas  what  they  are 
all  along  trying  to  prove  is,  that  we  can  rationally  affirm  what 
we  cannot  positively  conceive  or  construe  to  thought.  This 
includes  what  Mr.  Spencer  calls  “the  incomplete  thoughts  of 
an  indefinite  consciousness,”  and  more.  It  even  signifies  that 
we  can  and  do  rationally  affirm  not  only  what  is  incompletely 
thought  of,  but  that  of  which  we  can  only  think  the  meanings, 
or  the  relations  of  the  terms  by  which  it  is  expressed. 

Mr.  Spencer  believes  that  we  have  an  indefinite  conscious¬ 
ness  of  the  Absolute  and  of  Cause,  but  not  one  which  will  war- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERBERT  SPENCER. 


95 


rant  any  other  proposition  than  that  which  is  implied  in  this 
consciousness,  namely,  that  it  is  not  distinct.  That  we  can  be 
distinctly  ignorant  is  the  highest  religious  truth  he  has  to  offer. 
In  setting  forth  this  his  contribution  to  religious  philosophy,  he 
characterizes  the  argument  of  his  predecessors  thus: 

“Truly  to  realize  in  thought  any  one  of  the  propositions  of  which 
the  argument  consists,  the  unconditioned  must  be  represented  as  posi¬ 
tive,  not  negative.  How  then  can  it  be  a  legitimate  conclusion  from  the 
argument,  that  our  consciousness  of  it  is  negative?  An  argument,  the 
very  construction  of  which  assigns  to  a  certain  term  a  certain  meaning, 
but  which  ends  in  showing  that  this  term  has  no  such  meaning,  is  simply 
an  elaborate  suicide.” 

But  really  the  argument  of  which  Mr.  Spencer  has  proved 
his  total  misapprehension  is  not  an  argument  about  meanings 
at  all,  but  about  the  supposed  objects  of  thought  which  the 
terms  of  the  argument  denote.  To  conceive  the  meaning  of 
a  proposition  and  to  conceive  the  proposition  itself,  or  to  con¬ 
ceive  the  fact  which  the  proposition  expresses,  are  not  the 

same;  though  in  confounding  them  Mr.  Spencer  does  not 

< 

stand  alone.  The  question  is  about  the  mind’s  ability,  right,  or 

duty  to  believe  what,  as  stated  in  a  proposition,  is  stated  in 
* 

terms  which,  while  their  meanings  are  clear,  cannot  be  united 
in  a  judgment,  either  by  proof  from  what  is  truly  known,  or  by 
intuition.  If  two  such  propositions  stand  in  mutual  contradic¬ 
tion,  says  Sir  William  Hamilton,  one  of  them  must  be  true,  or 
the  laws  of  thought  are  false;  and  he  offers  the  alternative  of 
absolute  or  philosophical  scepticism,  a  suspension  of  all  judg¬ 
ments,  or  a  belief  in  something  inconceivable.  He  offers  it  of 
course  only  formally ;  for  a  decision  in  favor  of  scepticism  is 
self-contradictory,  a  judgment  that  all  judgments  are  false, 
which  ends  in  that  painful  uncertainty  exhibited  in  the  soph¬ 
ism  of  the  liar,  to  which  we  referred  in  treating  of  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer’s  Psychology.  The  choice  between  having  judgments 
and  having  none  is,  of  course,  only  a  paradoxical  mode  of 
presenting  the  absurdity  which  cannot  really  be  committed,  but 
which  is  implied  in  certain  confusions  of  thought.  It  was  to 
remove  these  confusions  by  clear  philosophical  statements, 
and  not  to  prove  anything,  that  Hamilton’s  doctrine  of  the 
conditioned  was  propounded. 


96 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


We  have  now  completed  our  survey  of  the  principal  philo¬ 
sophical  works  of  Mr.  Spencer,  a  writer  whose  pretensions  aim 
at  a  system  of  truth  which  shall  formulate  all  legitimate  human 
knowledge,  but  whose  performance  of  the  part  he  has  under¬ 
taken  gives  little  hope  of  success  in  what  yet  remains  to  do. 
The  number  of  topics  which  we  have  been  led  to  consider 
in  this  survey  illustrates  the  versatility  of  our  author,  and  the 
number  in  regard  to  which  we  have  been  compelled  to  deny 
his  conclusions  illustrates  his  incompetency  for  the  further  de¬ 
velopment  of  his  encyclopedic  abstractions. 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION  * 


Few  scientific  theories  have  met  with  such  a  cordial  recep¬ 
tion  by  the  world  of  scientific  investigators,  or  created  in  so 
short  a  time  so  complete  a  revolution  in  general  philosophy,  as 
the  doctrine  of  the  derivation  of  organic  species  by  Natural 
Selection ;  perhaps  in  this  respect  no  other  can  compare  with  it 
when  we  consider  the  incompleteness  of  the  proofs  on  which  it 
still  relies,  or  the  previous  prejudice  against  the  main  thesis  im¬ 
plied  in  it,  the  theory  of  the  development  or  transmutation  of 
species.  The  Newtonian  theory  of  gravity,  or  Harvey’s  theory 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  in  spite  of  the  complete  and 
overwhelming  proofs  by  which  these  were  soon  substantiated, 
were  much  longer  in  overcoming  to  the  same  degree  the 
deeply-rooted  prejudices  and  preconceptions  opposed  to  them. 
In  less  than  a  decade  the  doctrine  of  Natural  Selection  had 
conquered  the  opposition  of  the  great  majority  of  the  students 
of  natural  history,  as  well  as  of  the  students  pf  general  philoso¬ 
phy;  and  it  seems  likely  that  we  shall  witness  the  unparalleled 
spectacle  of  an  all  but  universal  reception  by  the  scientific 
world  of  a  revolutionary  doctrine  in  the  lifetime  of  its  author ; 
though  by  the  rigorous  tests  of  scientific  induction  it  will  yet 
hardly  be  entitled  to  more  than  the  rank  of  a  very  probable 
hypothesis.  How  is  this  singular  phenomenon  to  be  ex¬ 
plained  ?  Doubtless  in  great  part  by  the  extraordinary  skill 
which  Mr.  Darwin  has  brought  to  the  proof  and  promulgation 


*  From  the  North  American  Review,  October,  1870. 


5 


9 


98  PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 

of  his  views.  To  this,  Mr.  Wallace  thus  testifies  in  the  Preface 
to  his  book  :  * 

“The  present  work  will,  I  venture  to  think,  prove  that  I  both  saw  at  the 
time  the  value  and  scope  of  the  law  which  I  had  discovered,  and  have 
since  been  able  to  apply  it  to  some  purpose  in  a  few  original  lines  of  in¬ 
vestigation.  But  here  my  claims  cease.  I  have  felt  all  my  life,  and  I 
still  feel,  the  most  sincere  satisfaction  that  Mr.  Darwin  had  been  at  work 
long  before  me,  and  that  it  was  not  left  for  me  to  attempt  to  write  ‘  The 
Origin  of  Species.’  I  have  long  since  measured  my  own  strength,  and 
know  well  that  it  would  be  quite  unequal  to  that  task.  Far  abler  men 
than  myself  may  confess  that  they  have  not  that  untiring  patience  in  ac¬ 
cumulating,  and  that  wonderful  skill  in  using  large  masses  of  facts  of  the 
most  varied  kinds, — that  wide  and  accurate  physiological  knowledge, — 
that  acuteness  in  devising,  and  skill  in  carrying  out,  experiments,  and 
that  admirable  style  of  composition,  at  once  clear,  persuasive,  and  judi¬ 
cial, — qualities  which,  in  their  harmonious  combination,  mark  out  Mr. 
Darwin  as  the  man,  perhaps  of  all  men  now  living,  best  fitted  for  the  great 
work  he  has  undertaken  and  accomplished.” 

But  the  skillful  combination  of  inductive  and  deductive 
proofs  with  hypothesis,  though  a  powerful  engine  of  scientific 
discovery,  must  yet  work  upon  the  basis  of  a  preceding  and 
simpler  induction.  Pythagoras  would  never  have  demonstrated 
the  “forty-seventh,”  if  he  had  not  had  some  ground  of  believing 
in  it  beforehand.  The  force  and  value  of  the  preceding  and 
simpler  induction  have  been  obscured  in  this  case  by  sub¬ 
sequent  investigations.  And  yet  that  more  fundamental  evi¬ 
dence  accounts  for  the  fact  that  two  such  skillful  observers 
and  reasoners  as  Mr.  Wallace  and  Mr.  Darwin  arrived  at  the 
same  convictions  in  regard  to  the  derivation  of  species,  in 
entire  independence  of  each  other,  and  were  constrained  to 
accept  the  much-abused  and  almost  discarded  “transmutation 
hypothesis.”  And  both  moreover  reached,  independently,  the 
same  explanation  of  the  process  of  derivation.  This  was  ob¬ 
viously  from  their  similar  experiences  as  naturalists  ;  from  the 
force  of  the  same  obscure  and  puzzling  facts  which  their  stud¬ 
ies  of  the  geographical  distributions  of  animals  and  plants  had 
brought  to  their  notice,  though  the  Malthusian  doctrine  of 

*  Contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Natural  Selection.  A  Series  of  Essays.  By  Alfred 
Rupell  Wallace,  London,  1870. 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION 


99 


population  was,  doubtless,  the  original  source  of  their  common 
theory.  Mr.  Darwin,  in  the  Introduction  to  his  later  work  on 
“The  Variation  of  Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication,” 
attributes  the  beginnings  of  his  speculations  to  the  phenomena 
of  the  distributions  of  life  over  large  continental  areas,  and  in 
the  islands  of  large  archipelagoes,  and  especially  refers  to  the 
curious  phenomena  of  life  in  the  Galapagos  Islands  in  the  Pa¬ 
cific  Ocean.  Mr.  Wallace,  in  his  first  essay,  originally  pub¬ 
lished  in  1855,  four  years  earlier  than  “The  Origin  of  Species,” 
refers  to  the  same  class  of  facts,  and  the  same  special  facts  in 
regard  to  the  Galapagos  Islands,  as  facts  which  demand  the 
transmutation  hypothesis  for  their  sufficient  explanation. 

While  then  much  is  to  be  credited  to  the  sagacity  and 
candor  of  these  most  accomplished  travelers  and  observers  in  * 
appreciating  the  force  of  obscure  and  previously  little  studied 
facts,  yet  their  theoretical  discussions  of  the  hypothesis  brought 
forward  to  explain  them  have  been  of  still  more  importance 
in  arousing  an  ever-increasing  activity  in  the  same  field,  and 
in  creating  a  new  and  most  stimulating  interest  in  the  ex¬ 
ternal  economy  of  life, — in  the  relations  of  living  beings  to 
the  special  conditions  of  their  existence.  And  so  the  dis¬ 
cussion  is  no  longer  closet  work.  It  is  no  web  woven  from 
self-consuming  brains,  but  a  vast  accumulation  of  related  facts 
of  observation,  bound  together  by  the  bond  of  what  must  still 
be  regarded  as  an  hypothesis, — an  hypothesis,  however,  which 
has  no  rival  with  any  student  of  nature  in  whose  mind  rever¬ 
ence  does  not,  in  some  measure,  neutralize  the  aversion  of  the 
intellect  to  what  is  arbitrary. 

In  anticipating  the  general  acceptance  of  the  doctrine 
which  Mr.  Darwin  and  Mr.  Wallace  have  done  so  much 
to  illustrate,  we  ought  to  except  those  philosophers  who, 
from  a  severe,  ascetic,  and  self-restraining  temper,  or  from 
preoccupation  with  other  researches,  are  disposed  to  regard 
such  speculations  as  beyond  the  proper  province  of  scientific 
I  inquiry.  But  to  stop  short  in  a  research  of  “  secondary  causes,” 
so  long  as  experience  or  reason  can  suggest  any  derivation  of 
laws  and  relations  in  nature  which  must  otherwise  be  accepted 


IOO 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


as  ultimate  facts,  is  not  agreeable  to  that  Aristotelian  type  of 
mind  which  scientific  culture  so  powerfully  tends  to  produce. 
Whatever  the  theological  tendencies  of  such  a  mind,  whether 
ultimate  facts  are  regarded  by  it  as  literally  arbitrary,  the  de¬ 
crees  of  an  absolute  will,  or  are  summarily  explained  by  what 
Professor  De  Morgan  calls  “  that  exquisite  atheism,  ‘the  nature 
of  things,’  ”  it  still  cannot  look  upon  the  intricate  system  of 
adaptations,  peculiar  to  the  organic  world  (which  illustrates 
what  Cuvier  calls  “  the  principle  of  the  conditions  of  existence , 
vulgarly  called  the  principle  of final  causes  ”), — it  cannot  look 
upon  this  as  an  arbitrary  system,  or  as  composed  of  facts  in¬ 
dependent  of  all  ulterior  facts  (like  the  axioms  of  mechanics  or 
arithmetic  or  geometry),  so  long  as  any  explanation,  not  tan¬ 
tamount  to  arbitrariness  itself,  has  any  probability  in  the  order  of 
nature.  This  scientific  instinct  stops  far  short  of  an  irreverent 
attitude  of  mind,  though  it  does  not  permit  things  that  claim 
its  reverence  to  impede  its  progress.  And  so  a  class  of  facts, 
of  which  the  organical  sciences  had  previously  made  some  use 
as  instruments  of  scientific  discovery,  but  which  was  appropri¬ 
ated  especially  to  the  reasonings  of  Natural  Theology,  has 
fallen  to  the  province  of  the  discussions  of  Natural  Selection, 
and  has  been  wonderfully  enlarged  in  consequence.  It  cannot 
be  denied  that  this  change  has  weakened  the  force  of  the  ar¬ 
guments  of  Natural  Theology;  but  it  is  simply  by  way  of  sub¬ 
traction  or  by  default,  and  not  as  offering  any  arguments  op¬ 
posed  to  the  main  conclusions  of  theology.  “Natural  Selec¬ 
tion  is  not  inconsistent  with  Natural  Theology,”  in  the  sense 
of  refuting  the  main  conclusions  of  that  science;  it  only 
reduces  to  the  condition  of  an  arbitrary  assumption  one  im¬ 
portant  point  in  the  interpretation  of  special  adaptations  in  or¬ 
ganic  life,  namely,  the  assumption  that  in  such  adaptations 
foresight  and  special  provision  is  shown,  analogous  to  the  de¬ 
signing,  anticipatory  imaginings  and  volitions  in  the  mental 
actions  of  the  higher  animals,  and  especially  in  the  mind  of 
man. 

Upon  this  point  the  doctrine  of  Natural  Selection  assumes 
only  such  general  anticipation  of  the  wants  or  advantages  of 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


IOI 


an  animal  or  plant  as  is  implied  in  the  laws  of  inheritance. 
That  is,  an  animal  or  plant  is  produced  adapted  to  the  general 
conditions  of  its  existence,  with  only  such  anticipations  of  a 
change  or  of  varieties  in  these  conditions  as  is  implied  in  its 
general  tendency  to  vary  from  the  inherited  type.  Particular 
uses  have  no  special  causal  relations  to  the  variations  that  oc¬ 
cur  and  become  of  use.  In  other  words,  Natural  Selection,  as 
an  hypothesis,  does  not  assume,  and,  so  far  as  it  is  based  on  ob¬ 
servation,  it  affords  no  evidence,  that  any  adaptation  is  specially 
anticipated  in  the  order  of  nature.  From  this  point  of  view, 
the  wonderfully  intricate  system  of  special  adaptations  in  the 
organic  world  is,  at  any  epoch  of  its  history,  altogether  retro¬ 
spective.  Only  so  far  as  the  past  affords  a  type  of  the  future, 
both  in  the  organism  itself  and  in  its  external  conditions,  can 
the  conditions  of  existence  be  said  to  determine  the  adaptations 
of  life.  As  thus  interpreted,  the  doctrine  of  Final  Causes  is  de¬ 
prived  of  the  feature  most  obnoxious  to  its  opponents,  that 
abuse  of  the  doctrine  “which  makes  the  cause  to  be  engendered 
by  the  effect.”  But  it  is  still  competent  to  the  devout  mind  to 
take  a  broader  view  of  the  organic  world,  to  regard,  not  its  sin¬ 
gle  phases  only,  but  the  whole  system  from  its  first  beginnings 
as  presupposing  all  that  it  exhibits,  or  has  exhibited,  or  could 
exhibit,  of  the  contrivances  and  adaptations  which  may  thus  in 
one  sense  be  said  to  be  foreordained.  In  this  view,  however, 
the  organical  sciences  lose  their  traditional  arid  peculiar  value 
to  the  arguments  of  Natural  Theology,  and  become  only  a  part 
of  the  universal  order  of  nature,  like  the  physical  sciences  gen¬ 
erally,  in  the  principles  of  which  philosophers  have  professed  to 
find  no  sign  of  a  divinity.  But  may  they  not,  while  professing 
to  exclude  the  idea  of  God  from  their  systems,  have  really  in¬ 
cluded  him  unwittingly,  as  immanent  in  the  very  thought  that 
denies,  in  the  very  systems  that  ignore  him  ? 

So  far  as  Natural  Theology  aims  to  prove  that  the  principles 
of  utility  and  adaptation  are  all-pervasive  laws  in  the  organic 
world,  Natural  Selection  is  not  only  not  inconsistent,  but  is  iden¬ 
tical  with  it.  But  here  Natural  Selection  pauses.  It  does  not 
go  on  to  what  has  been  really  the  peculiar  province  of  Natural 

.1: 


. 


102 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


Theology,  to  discover,  or  trace  the  analogies  of  organic  adapta¬ 
tions  to  proper  designs,  or  to  the  anticipations  of  wants  and  ad¬ 
vantages  in  the  mental  actions  of  man  and  the  higher  animals. 
In  themselves  these  mental  actions  bear  a  striking  resemblance 
to  those  aspects  of  organic  life  ;n  general,  which  Natural  Selec¬ 
tion  regards;  and  according  to  the  views  of  the  experiential  psy¬ 
chologist,  this  resemblance  is  not  a  mere  analogy.  In  them¬ 
selves,  and  without  reference  to  the  external  uses  of  these 
mental  actions,  they  are  the  same  generalized  reproductions  of 
a  past  experience  as  those  which  the  organic  world  exhibits  in 
its  laws  of  inheritance,  and  are  modified  by  the  same  tenta¬ 
tive  powers  and  processes  of  variation,  but  to  a  much  greater 
degree.  But  here  the  resemblance  ceases.  The  relations  of 
such  mental  actions  to  the  external  life  of  an  organism,  in 
which  they  are  truly  prophetic  and  providential  agencies, 
though  founded  themselves  on  the  observation  of  a  past  order 
in  experience,  are  entirely  unique  and  unparalleled,  so  far  as 
any  assumption  in  the  doctrine  of  Natural  Selection,  or  any 
proofs  which  it  adduces  are  concerned.  Nevertheless  a  greater 
though  vaguer  analogy  remains.  Some  of  the  wants  and  adap¬ 
tations  of  men  and  animals  are  anticipated  by  their  designing 
mental  actions.  Does  not  a  like  foreseeing  power,  ordaining 
and  governing  the  whole  of  nature,  anticipate  and  specially 
provide  for  some  of  its  adaptations  ?  This  appears  to  be  the 
distinctive  position  in  which  Natural  Theology  now  stands. 

We  have  dwelt  somewhat  at  length  on  this  aspect  of  our  au¬ 
thor’s  subject,  with  reference  to  its  bearing  on  his  philosophical 
views,  set  forth  in  his  concluding  essay  on  “The  Limits  of  Nat¬ 
ural  Selection  as  applied  to  Man,”  in  which  his  theological 
position  appears  to  be  that  which  we  have  just  defined.  We 
should  like  to  quote  many  passages  from  the  preceding  essays, 
in  illustration  of  the  principle  of  utility  and  adaptation,  in  which 
Mr.  Wallace  appears  at  his  best;  but  one  example  must  suffice. 
“  It  is  generally  acknowledged  that  the  best  test  of  the  truth 
and  completeness  of  a  theory  is  the  power  which  it  gives  us  of 
prevision  ” ;  and  on  this  ground  Mr.  Wallace  justly  claims 
great  weight  for  the  following  inquiry  into  the  “  use  of  the  gaudy 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


103 

colors  of  many  caterpillars,”  in  the  essay  on  Mimicry,  etc.,  p. 

1 1 7  • 

“  Since  this  essay  was  first  published,  a  very  curious  difficulty  has  been 
cleared  up  by  the  application  of  the  general  principle  of  protective  coloring. 
Great  numbers  of  caterpillars  are  so  brilliantly  marked  and  colored  as  to 
be  very  conspicuous  even  at  a  considerable  distance,  and  it  has  been  no¬ 
ticed  that  such  caterpillars  seldom  hide  themselves.  Other  species,  how¬ 
ever,  are  green  or  brown,  closely  resembling  the  colors  of  the  substances 
on  which  they  feed ;  while  others  again  imitate  sticks,  and  stretch  them¬ 
selves  out  motionless  from  a  twig,  so  as  to  look  like  one  of  its  branches. 
Now,  as  caterpillars  form  so  large  a  part  of  the  food  of  birds,  it  was  not 
easy  to  understand  why  any  of  them  should  have  such  bright  colors  and 
markings  as  to  make  them  specially  visible.  Mr.  Darwin  had  put  the 
case  to  me  as  a  difficulty  from  another  point  of  view,  for  he  had  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  that  brilliant  coloration  in  the  animal  kingdom  is  mainly 
due  to  sexual  selection,  and  this  could  not  have  acted  in  the  case  of  sexless 
larvse.  Applying  here  the  analogy  of  other  insects,  I  reasoned,  that  since 
some  caterpillars  were  evidently  protected  by  their  imitative  coloring,  and 
others  by  their  spiny  or  hairy  bodies,  the  bright  colors  of  the  rest  must 
also  be  in  some  way  useful  to  them.  I  further  thought,  that  as  some  but¬ 
terflies  and  moths  were  greedily  eaten  by  birds  while  others  were  distaste¬ 
ful  to  them,  and  these  latter  were  mostly  of  conspicuous  colors,  so  proba¬ 
bly  these  brilliantly  colored  caterpillars  were  distasteful  and  therefore  never 
eaten  by  birds.  Distastefulness  alone  would,  however,  be  of  little  ser¬ 
vice  to  caterpillars,  because  their  soft  and  juicy  bodies  are  so  delicate, 
that  if  seized  and  afterwards  rejected  by  a  bird  they  would  almost  certainly 
be  killed.  Some  constant  and  easily  perceived  signal  was  therefore  nec¬ 
essary  to  serve  as  a  warning  to  birds  never  to  touch  these  uneatable  kinds, 
and  a  very  gaudy  and  conspicuous  coloring,  with  the  habit  of  fully  expo¬ 
sing  themselves  to  view,  becomes  such  a  signal,  being  in  strong  contrast 
with  the  green  and  brown  tints  and  retiring  habits  of  the  eatable  kinds. 
The  subject  was  brought  by  me  before  the  Entomological  Society  (see 
Proceedings,  March  4,  1867),  in  order  that  those  members  having  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  making  observations  might  do  so  in  the  following  summer,” 
etc. 

Extensive  experiments  with  birds,  insectivorous  reptiles,  and 
spiders,  by  two  British  naturalists,  were  published  two  years 
later,  and  fully  confirmed  Mr.  Wallace’s  anticipations.  His 
book  is  full  of  such  curious  matters. 

In  a  controversial  essay  called  “  Creation  by  Law,”  an  an¬ 
swer  to  various  criticisms  of  the  doctrine  of  Natural  Selection, 
Mr.  Wallace  is  equally  happy  and  able;  and  in  his  essay  on 


104 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


“The  Action  of  Natural  Selection  on  Man,”  he  shows  a  won¬ 
derful  sagacity  and  skill  in  developing  a  new  phase  of  his  sub¬ 
ject,  while  meeting,  as  in  so  many  other  cases,  obstacles  and 
objections  to  the  theory.  It  appears,  both  by  geological  evi¬ 
dence  and  by  deductive  reasonings  in  this  essay,  that  the 
human  race  is  singularly  exempt  from  variation  and  the  ac¬ 
tion  of  Natural  Selection,  so  far  as  its  merely  physical  quali¬ 
ties  are  concerned.  This  follows  from  theoretical  considera¬ 
tions,  since  the  race  has  come  to  depend  mainly  on  its  mental 
qualities,  and  since  it  is  on  these,  and  not  on  its  bodily  powers, 
that  Natural  Selection  must  act.  Hence  the  small  amount  of 
physical  differences  between  the  earliest  men  of  whom  the  re¬ 
mains  have  been  found  and  the  men  of  the  present  day,  as  com¬ 
pared  to  differences  in  other  and  contemporary  races  of  mam¬ 
mals.  We  may  generalize  from  this  and  from  Mr.  Darwin’s 
observation  on  the  comparatively  extreme  variability  of  plants, 
that  in  the  scale  of  life  there  is  a  gradual  decline  in  physical 
variability,  as  the  organism  has  gathered  into  itself  resources  for 
meeting  the  exigencies  of  changing  external  conditions;  and 
that  while  in  the  mindless  and  motionless  plant  these  resources 
are  at  a  minimum ,  their  maximum  is  reached  in  the  mind  of 
man,  which,  at  length,  rises  to  a  level  with  the  total  order  and 
powers  of  nature,  and  in  its  scientific  comprehension  of  nature 
is  a  summary,  an  epitome  of  the  world.  But  the  scale  of  life 
determined  by  the  number  and  variety  of  actual  resources  in 
an  organism  ought  to  be  distinguished  from  the  rank  that  de¬ 
pends  on  a  high  degree  of  specialty  in  particular  parts  and 
functions,  since  in  such  respects  an  organism  tends  to  be  highly 
variable. 

But  Mr.  Wallace  thinks,  and  argues  in  his  concluding  essay, 
that  this  marvelous  being,  the  human  mind,  cannot  be  a  prod¬ 
uct  of- Natural  Selection;  that  some,  at  least,  of  the  mental 
and  moral  qualities  of  man  are  beyond  the  jurisdiction  and 
measure  of  utility;  that  Natural  Selection  has  its  limits,  and 
that  among  the  most  conspicuous  examples  of  its  failure  to 
explain  the  order  of  nature  are  the  more  prominent  and  char¬ 
acteristic  distinctions  of  the  human  race.  Some  of  these,  ac- 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


io5 

cording  to  Mr.  Wallace,  are  physical;  not  only  the  physical 
instruments  of  man’s  mental  nature,  his  voluminous  brain,  his 
cunning  hand,  the  structure  and  power  of  his  vocal  organs,  but 
also  a  characteristic  which  appears  to  have  no  relation  to  his 
mental  nature, — his  nakedness.  Man  is  distinguished  from  all 
soft  and  delicate  skinned  terrestrial  mammals  in  having  no 
hairy  covering  to  protect  his  body.  In  other  mammals  the 
hair  is  a  protection  against  rain,  as  is  proved  by  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  disposed, — a  kind  of  argument,  by  the  way,  espe¬ 
cially  prized  by  Cuvier,  which  has  acquired  great  validity  since 
Harvey’s  reasonings  on  the  valves  of  the  veins.*  The  backs 
of  these  animals  are  more  especially  protected  in  this  way. 
But  it  is  from  the  back  more  especially  that  the  hairy  cover¬ 
ing  is  missed  in  the  whole  human  race ;  and  it  is  so  effectually 
abolished  as  a  character  of  the  species,  that  it  never  occurs 
even  by  such  reversions  to  ancestral  types  as  are  often  exhib¬ 
ited  in  animal  races.  How  could  this  covering  have  ever  been 

*  It  is  remarkable  that  our  author  should  be  so  willing  to  attribute  such  a  slight  and 
unimportant  character  as  the  hair  of  animals,  and  even  the  lay  of  it,  to  Natural  Selec¬ 
tion,  and,  at  the  same  time,  should  regard  the  absence  of  it  from  the  human  back  as  be¬ 
yond  the  resources  of  natural  explanations.  We  credit  him,  nevertheless,  with  the 
clearest  appreciation,  through  his  studies  and  reflections,  of  the  extent  of  the  action  of 
the  law  which  he  independently  discovered;  which  comprises  in  its  scope,  not  merely 
the  stern  necessities  of  mere  existence,  but  the  gentlest  amenities  of  the  most  favored 
life.  Sexual  Selection,  with  all  its  obscure  and  subtle  influences,  is  a  type  of  this  gen¬ 
tler  action,  which  ranges  all  the  way  in  its  command  of  fitnesses  from  the  hard  necessi¬ 
ties  of  utility  and  warfare  to  the  apparently  useless  superfluities  of  beauty  and  affection. 
Nay,  more,  a  defect  which,  without  subtracting  from  the  attractions  or  any  other  im¬ 
portant  external  advantage  in  an  animal,  should  simply  be  the  source  of  private  discom¬ 
fort  to  it,  is  certain  to  come  under  the  judgments  of  this  all-searching  principle.  • 

It  is  a  fair  objection,  however,  sometimes  made  against  the  theory  of  Natural  Selec¬ 
tion,  that  it  abounds  in  loopholes  of  ingenious  escape  from  the  puzzling  problems  of  na¬ 
ture  ;  and  that,  instead  of  giving  real  explanations  of  many  phenomena,  it  simply  refers 
them  in  general  terms  to  obscure  and  little  known,  perhaps  wholly  inadequate  causes,  of 
which  it  holds  omne  ignotum  pro  magnifico.  But  this  objection,  though  good,  so  far  as 
it  goes,  against  the  theory,  is  not  in  favor  of  any  rival  hypothesis,  least  of  all  of  that 
greatest  of  unknown  causes,  the  supernatural,  which  is  magnificent  indeed  in  adequacy, 
if  it  be  only  real,  but  whose  reality  must  rest  forever  on  the  negative  evidence  of  the  in¬ 
sufficiency,  not  only  of  the  known,  but  of  all  possible  natural  explanations,  and  whose 
sufficiency  even  is,  after  all,  only  the  counterpart  or  reflection  of  their  apparent  insuffi¬ 
ciencies.  Hence  the  objection  is  a  fair  one  only  against  certain  phases  of  this  theory,  and 
against  the  tendency  to  rest  satisfied  with  its  imperfect  explanations,  or  to  regard  them 
lightly  as  trivial  defects.  But  to  such  criticisms  the  progress  of  the  theory  itself,  in  the 
study  of  nature,  is  a  sufficient  answer  in  general,  and  is  a  triumphant  vindication  of  the 
mode  of  inquiry,  against  which  such  criticisms  are  sometimes  unjustly  made. 


io6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


injurious,  or  other  than  useful  to  men?  Or,  if  at  any  time  in 
the  past  history  of  the  race  it  was  for  any  unknown  reason  in¬ 
jurious,  why  should  not  the  race,  or  at  least  some  part  of  it, 
have  recovered  from  the  loss  and  acquired  anew  so  important 
a  protection  ?  Mr.  Wallace  is  not  unmindful  of  Mr.  Darwin’s 
doctrine  of  Correlated  Variation,  and  the  explanation  it  affords 
of  useless  and  even  injurious  characters  in  animals;  but  he 
limits  his  consideration  of  it  to  the  supposition  that  the  loss  of 
hair  by  the  race  might  have  been  a  physiological  consequence 
of  correlation  with  some  past  unknown  hurtful  qualities.  From 
such  a  loss,  however,  he  argues,  the  race  ought  to  have  recov¬ 
ered.  But  he  omits  to  consider  the  possible  correlation  of  the 
absence  of  hair  with  qualities  not  necessarily  injurious,  but 
useful,  which  remain  and  equally  distinguish  the  race.  Many 
correlated  variations  are  quite  inexplicable.  “Some  are  quite 
whimsical:  thus  cats,  which  are  entirely  white  and  have  blue 
eyes,  are  generally  deaf,”  and  very  few  instances  could  be  an¬ 
ticipated  from  known  physiological  laws,  such  as  homological 
relations.  There  is,  however,  a  case  in  point,  cited  by  Mr. 
Darwin,  the  correlation  of  imperfect  teeth  with  the  nakedness 
of  the  hairless  Turkish  dog.  If  the  intermediate  varieties  be¬ 
tween  men  and  the  man-apes  had  been  preserved,  and  a  regu¬ 
lar  connection  between  the  sizes  of  their  brains,  or  develop¬ 
ments  of  the  nervous  system,  and  the  amount  of  hair  on  their 
backs  were  observed,  this  would  be  as  good  evidence  of  cor¬ 
relation  between  these  two  characters  as  that  which  exists  in 
most  cases  of  correlation.  But  how  in  the  absence  of  any 
evidence  to  test  this  or  any  other  hypothesis,  can  Mr.  Wal¬ 
lace  presume  to  say  that  the  law  of  Natural  Selection  cannot 
explain  such  a  peculiarity?  It  may  be  that  no  valid  proof  is 
possible  of  any  such  explanation,  but  how  is  he  warranted  in 
assuming  on  that  account  some  exceptional  and  wholly  occult 
cause  for  it?  There  is  a  kind  of  correlation  between  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  brains  and  the  absence  of  hair  which  is  not  of  so  ob¬ 
scure  a  nature,  and  may  serve  to  explain  in  part,  at  least,' why 
Natural  Selection  has  not  restored  the  protection  of  a  hairy 
coat,  however  it  may  have  been  lost.  Mr.  Wallace  himself 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


1°7 

i 

signalizes  this  correlation  in  the  preceding  essay.  It  is  that 
through  which  art  supplies  to  man  in  a  thousand  ways  the  de¬ 
ficiencies  of  nature,  and  supersedes  the  action  of  Natural  Se¬ 
lection.  Every  savage  protects  his  back  by  artificial  coverings. 
Mr.  Wallace  cites  this  fact  as  a  proof  that  the  loss  of  hair  is  a 
defect  which  Natural  Selection  ought  to  remedy.  But  why 
should  Natural  Selection  remedy  what  art  has  already  cared 
for?  In  this  essay  Mr.  Wallace  seems  to  us  to  have  laid  aside 
his  usual  scientific  caution  and  acuteness,  and  to  have  devoted 
his  powers  to  the  service  of  that  superstitious  reverence  for 
human  nature  which,  not  content  with  prizing  at  their  worth  the 
actual  qualities  and  acquisitions  of  humanity,  desires  to  intrench 
diem  with  a  deep  and  metaphysical  line  of  demarkation. 

There  are,  doubtless,  many  and  very  important  limitations 
to  the  action  of  Natural  Selection,  which  the  enthusiastic  stu¬ 
dent  of  the  science  ought  to  bear  in  mind ;  but  they  belong  to 
the  application  of  the  principle  of  utility  to  other  cases  as  well 
as  to  that  of  the  derivation  of  human  nature.  Mr.  Wallace 
regards  the  vocal  powers  of  the  human  larynx  as  beyond  the 
generative  action  of  Natural  Selection,  since  the  savage  neither 
uses  nor  appreciates  all  its  powers.  But  the  same  observation 
applies  as  well  to  birds,  for  certain  species,  as  he  says  in  his 
essay  on  “The  Philosophy  of  Birds’  Nests,”  “which  have  natu¬ 
rally  little  variety  of  song,  are  ready  in  confinement  to  learn 
from  other  species,  and  become  much  better  songsters.”  It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  prove  that  the  musical  capacities  of  the 
human  voice  involve  no  elementary  qualities  which  are  not 
involved  in  the  cadences  of  speech,  and  in  such  other  powers 
of  expression  as  are  useful  at  least,  if  not  indispensable,  in  lan¬ 
guage.  There  are  many  consequences  of  the  ultimate  laws  or 
uniformities  of  nature,*  through  which  the  acquisition  of  one 
useful  power  will  bring  with  it  many  resulting  advantages,  as 
well  as  limiting  disadvantages,  actual  or  possible,  which  the 
principle  of  utility  may  not  have  comprehended  in  its  action. 
This  principle  necessarily  presupposes  a  basis  in  an  antecedent 
constitution  of  nature,  in  principles  of  fitness,  and  laws  of 
cause  and  effect,  in  the  origin  of  which  it  has  had  no  agency. 


i 


io8 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


The  question  of  the  origin  of  this  constitution,  if  it  be  a  proper 
question,  belongs  to  metaphysical  philosophy,  or,  at  least,  to 
its  pretensions.  Strictly  speaking,  Natural  Selection  is  not  a 
cause  at  all,  but  is  the  mode  of  operation  of  a  certain  quite 
limited  class  of  causes.*  Natural  Selection  never  made  it 
come  to  pass,  as  a  habit  of  nature,  that  an  unsupported  stone 
should  move  downwards  rather  than  upwards.  It  applies  to 
no  part  of  inorganic  nature,  and  is  very  limited  even  in  the 
phenomena  of  organic  life. 

In  his  obvious  anxiety  to  establish  for  the  worth  of  human 
nature  the  additional  dignity  of  metaphysical  isolation,  Mr. 
Wallace  maintains  the  extraordinary  thesis  that  “the  brain  of 


*  Though  very  limited  in  extent,  this  class  is  marked  out  only  by  the  single  character, 
that  the  efficient  causes  (of  whatever  nature,  whether  the  forces  of  simple  growth  and  re¬ 
production,  or  the  agency  of  the  human  will),  are  yet  of  such  a  nature  as  to  act  through 
the  principles  of  utility  and  choice.  It  includes  in  its  range,  therefore,  developments  of 
the  simplest  adaptive  organic  characters  on  one  hand,  and  the  growths  of  language  and 
other  human  customs  on  the  other.  It  has  been  objected  that  Natural  Selection  does 
not  apply  to  the  origin  of  languages,  because  language  is  an  invention,  and  the  work  of 
the  human  will ;  and  it  is  clear,  indeed,  that  Natural,  as  distinguished  from  Artificial, 
Selection  is  not  properly  the  cause  of  language,  or  of  the  custom  of  speech.  But  to  this 
it  is  sufficient  to  reply,  that  the  contrast  of  Natural  and  Artificial  Selections  is  not  a  con¬ 
trast  of  principles,  but  only  of  illustrations,  and  that  the  common  principle  of  “  the 
survival  of  the  fittest”  is  named  by  Synecdoche  from  the  broader  though,  more  obscure 
illustration  of  it.  If  it  can  be  shown  that  the  choice  of  a  word  from  among  many  words 
as  the  name  of  an  object  or  idea,  or  the  choice  of  a  dialect  from  among  many  varie¬ 
ties  of  speech,  as  the  language  of  literature,  is  a  universal  process  in  the  developments  of 
speech  and  is  determined  by  real,  though  special  grounds  of  fitness,  then  this  choice  is 
a  proper  illustration  of  the  principle  of  Natural  Selection;  and  is  the  more  so,  with 
reference  to  the  name  of  the  principle,  in  proportion  as  the  process  and  the  grounds  of 
fitness  in  this  choice  differ  from  the  common  volitions  and  motives  of  men,  or  are  ob¬ 
scured  by  the  imperfections  of  the  records  of  the  past,  or  by  the  subtleties  of  the  associa¬ 
tions  which  have  determined  it  in  the  minds  of  the  inventors  and  adopters  of  language. 
It  is  important,  however,  to  distinguish  between  the  origins  of  languages  or  linguistic 
customs,  which  are  questions  of  philology,  and  the  psychological  question  of  the  origin 
of  language  in  general,  or  the  origin  in  human  nature  of  the  inventions  and  uses  of 
speech.  Whether  Natural  Selection  will  serve  to  solve  the  latter  question  remains  to  be 
seen.  In  connection,  however,  with  the  resemblance,  here  noted,  between  the  primitive, 
but  regularly  determined  inventions  of  the  mind  and  Natural  Selection  in  its  narrower 
sense,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  a  corresponding  resemblance  between  the  theories  of 
Free-Will  and  Creation,  which  are  opposed  to  them.  The  objection  that  the  origin  of 
languages  does  not  belong  to  the  inquiries  of  Natural  Selection,  because  language  is  an 
invention,  and  the  work  of  Free-Will,  thus  appears  to  be  parallel  to  the  objection  to 
Natural  Selection,  that  it  attempts  to  explain  the  work  of  Creation;  and  both  objections 
obviously  beg  the  questions  at  issue.  But  both  objections  have  force  with  reference  to 
the  real  and  proper  limitations  of  Natural  Selection,  and  to  the  antecedent  conditions  of 
ts  action. 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


109 

the  savage  is  larger  than  he  needs  it  to  be  ” ;  from  which  he 
would  conclude  that  there  is  in  the  size  of  the  savage’s  brain  a 
special  anticipation  or  prophecy  of  the  civilized  man,  or  even  of 
the  philosopher,  though  the  inference  would  be  far  more  natural, 
and  entirely  consistent  with  Natural  Selection,  that  the  savage 
has  degenerated  from  a  more  advanced  condition.  The  proofs 
of  our  author’s  position  consist  in  showing  that  there  is  a  very 
slight  difference  between  the  average  size  of  the  savage’s  brain 
and  that  of  the  European,  and  that  even  in  prehistoric  man 
the  capacity  of  the  skull  approaches  very  near  to-  that  of  the 
modern  man,  as  compared  to  the  largest  capacity  of  anthropoid 
skulls.  Again,  the  size  of  the  brain  is  a  measure  of  intellectual 
power,  as  proved  by  the  small  size  of  idiotic  brains,  and  the 
more  than  average  size  of  the  brains  of  great  men,  or  “those 
who  combine  acute  perception  with  great  reflective  powers, 
strong  passions,  and  general  energy  of  character.”  By  these 
considerations  “  the  idea  is  suggested  of  a  surplusage  of  pow¬ 
er,  of  an  instrument  beyond  the  needs  of  its  possessor.” 
From  a  rather  artificial  and  arbitrary  measure  of  intellectual 
power,  the  scale  of  marks  in  university  examinations,  as  com¬ 
pared  to  the  range  of  sizes  in  brains,  Mr.  Wallace  concludes  it 
to  be  fairly  inferred,  “that  the  savage  possesses  a  brain  capa¬ 
ble,  if  cultivated  and  developed,  of  performing  work  of  a  kind 
and  degree  far  beyond  what  he  ever  requires  it  to  do.”  But 
how  far  removed  is  this  conclusion  from  the  idea  that  the 
savage  has  more  brains  than  he  needs!  Why  may  it  not  be 
that  all  that  he  can  do  with  his  brains  beyond  his  needs  is  only 
incidental  to  the  powers  which  are  directly  serviceable  ?  Of 
what  significance  is  it  that  his  brain  is  twice  as  great  as  that 
of  the  man-ape,  while  the  philosopher  only  surpasses  him  one 
sixth,  so  long  as  we  have  no  real  measure  of  the  brain  power 
implied  in  the  one  universal  characteristic  of  humanity,  the 
power  of  language, — that  is,  the  power  to  invent  and  use 
arbitrary  signs  ? 

Mr.  Wallace  most  unaccountably  overlooks  the  significance 
of  what  has  always  been  regarded  as  the  most  important  dis¬ 
tinction  of  the  human  race, — its  rationality  as  shown  in  lan- 


no 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


guage.  He  even  says  that  “the  mental  requirements  of  sav¬ 
ages,  and  the  faculties  actually  exercised  by  them,  are  very 
little  above  those  of  animals.”  We  would  not  call  in  question 
the  accuracy  of  Mr.  Wallace’s  observations  of  savages;  but  we 
can  hardly  accord  equal  credit  to  his  accuracy  in  estimating 
the  mental  rank  of  their  faculties.  No  doubt  the  savage  mind 
seems  very  dull  as  compared  with  the  sagacity  shown  by  many 
animals;  but  a  psychological  analysis  of  the  faculty  of  lan¬ 
guage  shows  that  even  the  smallest  proficiency  in  it  might  re¬ 
quire  more  brain  power  than  the  greatest  in  any  other  direc¬ 
tion.  For  this  faculty  implies  a  complete  inversion  of  the  or- 
dinarv  and  natural  orders  of  association  in  the  mind,  or  such 
an  inversion  as  in  mere  parroting  would  be  implied  by  the  rep¬ 
etition  of  the  words  of  a  sentence  in  an  inverse  order, — a  most 
difficult  feat  even  for  a  philosopher.  “The  power  of  abstract 
reasoning  and  ideal  conception,”  which  Mr.  Wallace  esteems  as 
a  very  great  advance  on  the  savage’s  proficiency,  is  but  another 
step  in  the  same  direction,  and  here,  too,  ce  Nest  que  le premier 
pas  qui  coute.  It  seems  probable  enough  that  brain  power 
proper,  or  its  spontaneous  and  internal  determinations  of  the 
perceptive  faculties,  should  afford  directly  that  use  or  command 
of  a  sign  which  is  implied  in  language,  and  essentially  consists 
in  the  power  of  turning  back  the  attention  from  a  suggested 
fact  or  idea  to  the  suggesting  ones,  with  reference  to  their  use, 
in  place  of  the  naturally  passive  following  and  subserviency  of 
the  mind  to  the  orders  of  first  impressions  and  associations. 
By  inverting  the  proportions  which  the  latter  bear  to  the  forces 
of  internal  impressions,  or  to  the  powers  of  imagination  in  an¬ 
imals,  we  should  have  a  fundamentally  new  order  of  mental 
actions;  which,  with  the  requisite  motives  to  them,  such  as  the 
social  nature  of  man  would  afford,  might  go  far  towards  defin¬ 
ing  the  relations,  both  mental  and  physical,  of  human  races  to 
the  higher  brute  animals.  Among  these  the  most  sagacious 
and  social,  though  they  may  understand  language,  or  follow 
its  significations,  and  even  by  indirection  acquire  some  of  its 
uses,  yet  have  no  direct  power  of  using ,  and  no  power  of  in * 
ve?iti?ig  it. 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


ill 


But  as  we  do  not  know,  and  have  no  means  of  knowing, 
what  is  the  quantity  of  intellectual  power,  as  measured  by 
brains,  which  even  the  simplest  use  of  language  requires,  how 
shall  we  be  able  to  measure  on  such  a  scale  the  difference  be¬ 
tween  the  savage  and  the  philosopher;  which  consists,  not  so 
much  in  additional  elementary  faculties  in  the  philosopher,  as  in 
a  more  active  and  persistent  use  of  such  faculties  as  are  com¬ 
mon  to  both;  and  depends  on  the  external  inheritances  of  civ¬ 
ilization,  rather  than  on  the  organic  inheritances  of  the  civilized 
man?  It  is  the  kind  of  mental  acquisition  of  which  a  race 
may  be  capable,  rather  than  the  amount  which  a  trained  indi- 
.  vidual  may  acquire,  that  we  should  suppose  to  be  more  imme¬ 
diately  measured  by  the  size  of  the  brain;  and  Mr.  Wallace  has 
not  shown  that  this  kind  is  not  serviceable  to  the  savage.  Idiots 
have  sometimes  great  powers  of  acquisition  of  a  certain  low 
order  of  facts  and  ideas.  Evidence  upon  this  point,  from  the 
relations  of  intellectual  power  to  the  growth  of  the  brain  in 
children,  is  complicated  in  the  same  way  by  the  fact  that  pow¬ 
ers  of  acquisitions  are  with  difficulty  distinguished  from,  and 
are  not  a  proper  measure  of,  the  intellectual  powers,  which  de¬ 
pend  directly  on  organic  conditions,  and  are  independent  of 
an  external  inheritance. 

But  Mr.  Wallace  follows,  in  his  estimations  of  distinct  men¬ 
tal  faculties,  the  doctrines  of  a  school  of  mental  philosophy 
which  multiplies  the  elementary  faculties  of  the  mind  far  be¬ 
yond  any  necessity.  Many  faculties  are  regarded  by  this 
school  as  distinct,  which  are  probably  only  simple  combinations 
or  easy  extensions  of  other  faculties.  The  philosopher’s  men¬ 
tal  powers  are  not  necessarily  different  in  their  elements  from 
those  which  the  savage  has  and  needs  in  his  struggle  for  exist¬ 
ence,  or  to  maintain  his  position  in  the  scale  of  life  and  the  re¬ 
sources  on  which  he  has  come  to  depend.  The  philosopher’s 
powers  are  not,  it  is  true,  the  direct  results  of  Natural  Selection, 
or  of  utility ;  but  may  they  not  result  by  the  elementary  laws 
of  mental  natures  and  external  circumstances,  from  faculties 
that  are  useful  ?  If  they  imply  faculties  which  are  useless  to 
the  savage,  we  have  still  the  natural  alternative  left  us,  which 
Mr.  Wallace  does  not  consider,  that  savages,  or  all  the  races  of 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


\vz 

savages  now  living,  are  degenerate  men,  and  not  the  propel 
representatives  of  the  philosopher’s  ancestors.  But  this  alter¬ 
native,  though  the  natural  one,  does  not  appear  to  us  as  neces¬ 
sary  ;  for  we  are  not  convinced  that  “  the  power  of  conceiving 
eternity  and  infinity,  and  all  those  purely  abstract  notions  of 
form,  number,  and  harmony,  which  play  so  large  a  part  in  the 
life  of  civilized  races,”  are  really  so  “  entirely  outside  of  the 
world  of  thought  of  the  savage”  as  our  author  thinks.  Are 
they  not  rather  implied  and  virtually  acquired  in  the  powers 
that  the  savage  has  and  needs, — his  powers  of  inventing  and 
using  even  the  concrete  terms  of  his  simple  language  ?  The 
fact  that  it  does  not  require  Natural  Selection,  but  only  the 
education  of  the  individual  savage,  to  develop  in  him  these 
results,  is  to  us  a  proof,  not  that  the  savage  is  specially  provided 
with  faculties  beyond  his  needs,  nor  even  that  he  is  degenerated, 
but  that  mind  itself,  or  elementary  mental  natures,  in  the  sav¬ 
age  and  throughout  the  whole  sentient  world,  involve  and  im¬ 
ply  such  relations  between  actual  and  potential  faculties;  just 
as  the  elementary  laws  of  physics  involve  many  apparently,  or 
at  -first  sight  distinct  and  independent  applications  and  utilities. 
Ought  we  to  regard  the  principle  of  “  suction,”  applied  to  the 
uses  of  life  in  so  many  and  various  animal  organisms,  as  spe¬ 
cially  prophetic  of  the  mechanical  invention  of  the  pump  and 
of  similar  engines  ?  Shall  we  say  that  in  the  power  of  “  suc¬ 
tion  ”  an  animal  possesses  faculties  that  he  does  not  need  ? 
Natural  Selection  cannot,  it  is  true,  be  credited  with  such  re¬ 
lations  in  development.  But  neither  can  they  be  attributed 
to  a  special  providence  in  any  intelligible  sense.  They  belong 
rather  to  that  constitution  of  nature,  or  general  providence, 
which  Natural  Selection  presupposes. 

The  theories  of  associational  psychology  are  so  admirably 
adapted  to  the  solution  of  problems,  for  which  Mr.  Wallace 
seems  obliged  to  call  in  the  aid  of  miracles,  that  we  are  sur¬ 
prised  he  was  not  led  by  his  studies  to  a  more  careful  consid¬ 
eration  of  them.  Thus  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  moral 
sense,  which  Mr.  Wallace  defines  in  accordance  with  the  intui- 
tional  theory  as  “a  feeling, — a  sense  of  right  and  wrong, — in 
our  nature,  antecedent  to,  and  independent  of,  experiences  of 


LIMITS  OF  NA  TUI  A I  SELECTION. 


IJ3 

utility,” — this  sense  is  capable  of  an  analysis  which  meets  and 
answers  very  simply  the  difficulties  he  finds  in  it  on  the  theory 
of  Natural  Selection.  The  existence  of  feelings  of  approval 
and  disapproval,  or  of  likings  and  aversions  to  certain  classes 
of  actions,  and  a  sense  of  obligation,  are  eminently  useful  in 
the  government  of  human  society,  even  among  savages.  These 
feelings  may  be  associated  with  the  really  useful  and  the 
really  harmful  classes  of  actions,  or  they  may  not  be.  Such 
associations  are  not  determined  simply  by  utility,  any  oftener 
than  beliefs  are  by  proper  evidence.  But  utility  tends  to  pro¬ 
duce  the  proper  associations ;  and  in  this,  along  with  the  in¬ 
crease  of  these  feelings  themselves,  consists  the  moral  progress 
of  the  race.  Why  should  not  a  fine  sense  of  honor  and  an  un¬ 
compromising  veracity  be  found,  then,  among  savage  tribes,  as 
in  certain  instances  cited  by  Mr.  Wallace ;  since  moral  feelings, 
or  the  motives  to  the  observance  of  rules  of  conduct,  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  even  the  simplest  human  society,  and  rest  directly 
on  the  utility  of  man’s  political  nature ;  and  since  veracity  and 
honor  are  not  merely  useful,  but  indispensable  in  many  rela¬ 
tions,  even  in  savage  lives  ?  Besides,  veracity  being  one  of 
the  earliest  developed  instincts  of  childhood,  can  hardly  with 
propriety  be  regarded  as  an  original  moral  instinct,  since  it 
matures  much  earlier  than  the  sense  of  obligation,  or  any  feel¬ 
ing  of  the  sanctity  of  truth.  It  belongs  rather  to  that  social 
and  intellectual  part  of  human  nature  from  which  language  it¬ 
self  arises.  The  desire  of  communication,  and  the  desire  of 
communicating  the  truth,  are  originally  identical  in  the  ingen¬ 
uous  social  nature.  Is  not  this  the  source  of  the  “mystical 
sense  of  wrong;,”  attached  to  untruthfulness,  which  is,  after  all, 
regarded  by  mankind  at  large  as  so  venial  a  fault  ?  It  needs 
but  little  early  moral  discipline  to  convert  into  a  strong  moral 
sentiment  so  natural  an  instinct.  Deceitfulness  is  rather  the 
acquired  quality,  so  far  as  utility  acts  directly  on  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  individual,  and  for  his  advantage ;  but  the  native 
instinct  of  veracity  is  founded  on  the  more  primitive  utilities  of 
society  and  human  intercourse.  Instead,  then,  of  regarding 
i  veracity  as  an  original  moral  instinct,  “antecedent  to,  and  in¬ 
dependent  of,  experiences  of  utility,”  it  appears  to  us  more 


I 


ri4 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


natural  to  regard  it  as  originally  an  intellectual  and  social  in¬ 
stinct,  founded  in  the  broadest  and  most  fundamental  utilities 
of  human  nature. 

The  extension  of  the  moral  nature  beyond  the  bounds  of 
the  necessities  and  utilities  of  society  does  not  require  a  mir¬ 
acle  to  account  for  it ;  since,  according  to  the  principles  of 
the  associational  psychology,  it  follows  necessarily  from  the 
elementary  laws  of  the  mind.  The  individual  experiences 
of  utility  which  attach  the  moral  feelings  to  rules  of  conduct 
are  more  commonly  those  of  rewards  and  punishments,  than 
of  the  direct  or  natural  consequences  of  the  conduct  itself; 
and  associations  thus  formed  come  to  supersede  all  conscious 
reference  to  rational  ends,  and  act  upon  the  will  in  the  man¬ 
ner  of  an  instinct.  The  uncalculating,  uncompromising  moral 
imperative  is  not,  it  is  true,  derived  from  the  individual’s 
direct  experiences  of  its  utility ;  but  neither  does  the  instinct 
of  the  bee,  which  sacrifices  its  life  in  stinging,  bear  any  relation 
to  its  individual  advantage.  Are  we  warranted,  then,  in  infer¬ 
ring  that  the  sting  is  useless  to  the  bee  ?  Suppose  that  whole 
communities  of  bees  should  occasionally  be  sacrificed  to  their 
instinct  of  self-defense,  would  this  prove  their  instinct  to  be  in¬ 
dependent  of  a  past  or  present  utility,  or  to  be  prophetic  of 
some  future  development  of  the  race  ?  Yet  such  a  conclusion 
would  be  exactly  parallel  to  that  which  Mr.  Wallace  draw? 
from  the  fact  that  savages  some  times  deal  honorably  with  their 
enemies  to  their  own  apparent  disadvantage.  It  is  a  universal 
law  of  the  organic  world,  and  a  necessary  consequence  of  Nat¬ 
ural  Selection,  that  the  individual  comprises  in  its  nature 
chiefly  what  is  useful  to  the  race,  and  only  incidentally  what 
is  useful  to  itself ;  since  it  is  the  race,  and  not  the  .individual, 
that  endures  or  is  preserved.  This  contrast  is  the  more 
marked  in  proportion  as  a  race  exhibits  a  complicated  polity 
or  social  form  of  life ;  and  man,  even  in  his  savage  state,  is 
more  political  than  any  bee  or  ant.”  The  doctrine  of  Natu¬ 
ral  Selection  awakens  a  new  interest  in  the  problems  of  psy¬ 
chology.  Its  inquiries  are  not  limited  to  the  origin  of  species. 
“  In  the  distant  future,”  says  Mr.  Darwin,  “  I  see  open  fields 
for  far  more  important  researches.  Psychology  will  be  based 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


IX5 


on  a  new  foundation, — that  of  the  necessary  acquirements  of 
each  mental  power  and  capacity  by  gradation.  Light  will  be 
thrown  on  the  origin  of  man  and  his  history.”  More  light  we 
are  sure  can  be  expected  from  such  researches  than  has  been 
discovered  by  Mr.  Wallace,  in  the  principles  and  analysis  of  a 
mystical  and  metaphysical  psychology. 

The  “origin  of  consciousness,”  or  of  sensation  and  thought, 
is  relegated  similarly  by  Mr.  Wallace  to  the  immediate  agency 
or  interposition  of  a  metaphysical  cause,  as  being  beyond  the 
province  of  secondary  causes,  which  could  act  to  produce  it 
under  the  principle  of  Natural  Selection.  And  it  is  doubtless 
true,  nay,  unquestionable,  that  sensation  as  a  simple  nature, 
with  the  most  elementary  laws  of  its  activity,  does  really  belong 
to  the  primordial  facts  in  that  constitution  of  nature,  which  is 
presupposed  by  the  principle  of  utility  as  the  ground  or  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  fitnesses  through  which  the  principle  acts.  In  like 
manner  the  elements  of  organization,  or  the  capacities  of  living 
matter  in  general,  must  be  posited  as  antecedent  to  the  mode 
of  action  which  has  produced  in  it,  and  through  its  elementary 
laws,  such  marvelous  results.  But  if  we  mean  by  “conscious¬ 
ness”  what  the  word  is  often  and  more  properly  used  to  ex¬ 
press, — that  total  and  complex  structure  of  sensibilities, 
thoughts,  and  emotions  in  an  animal  mind,  which  is  so  closely 
related  to  the  animal’s  complex  physical  organization, — so  far 
is  this  from  being  beyond  the  province  of  Natural  Selection, 
that  it  affords  one  of  the  most  promising  fields  for  its  future 
investigations.*  Whatever  the  results  of  such  investigations, 


L 

$ 

P 


*  In  further  illustration  of  the  range  of  the  explanations  afforded  by  the  principle  of 
Natural  Selection,  to  which  we  referred  in  our  note,  page  108,  we  may  instance  an  ap- 
'plication  of  it  to  the  more  special  psychological  problem  of  the  development  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  mind  by  its  own  experiences,  which  presupposes,  of  course,  the  innate  powers  and 
mental  faculties  derived  (whether  naturally  or  supernaturally)  from  the  development  of 
the  race.  Among  these  native  faculties  of  the  individual  mind  is  the  power  of  reproducing 
its  own  past  experiences  in  memory  and  belief;  and  this  is,  at  least,  analogous,  as  we 
have  said,  to  the  reproductive  powers  of  physical  organisms,  and  like  these  is  in  itself 
an  unlimited,  expansive  power  of  repetition.  Human  beliefs,  like  human  desires,  are 
naturally  illimitable.  The  generalizing  instinct  is  native  to  the  mind.  It  is  not  the  result 
of  habitual  experiences,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  but  acts  as  well  on  single  experiences, 
which  are  capable  of  producing,  when  unchecked,  the  most  unbounded  beliefs  and  ex¬ 
pectations  of  the  future.  The  only  checks  to  such  unconditional  natural  beliefs  are  other 
and  equally  unconditional  and  natural  beliefs,  or  the  contradictions  and  limiting  condi¬ 
tions  of  experience.  Here,  then,  is  a  close  analogy,  at  least,  to  those  fundamental  facts 


PHIL OSOPHICA L  DISCUSS  10 US. 


116 

we  may  rest  assured  that  they  will  not  solve;  will  never  even 
propound  the  problem  peculiar  to  metaphysics  (if  it  can  prop- 

- -  7  which  the  law  of  Natural  Selection  is  based;  the  facts,  namely, 

of  the  organic  world  on  which  law  „the  conditions  of  existence,”  and 

of  the  “rapid  increase  of  organisms,  limited  o  y  Y  “survival  of  the 

adjusts  itself  to  slowly  changing  external  and  from  a 

mind,  beliefs  which  spring  spontaneous  y  from  simple  §  £  ^  and  ^  their 

naturally  unlimited  tendency  to  S^nera^ ^knowledges  of  the  mind,  and  by 

harmony  represent  the  proper  y  a  an^  changing  external  conditions,  or  with 

adaptive  changes  are  kept  in  accordance  with  chanj^  ^  ^  Umitation  of 

the  varying  total  results  in  t  e  memory  ^  [heir  proper  evidence,  is  so  prominent 

belief  by  belief,  in  that  philosophers  had  failed  to  discover  their 

a  feature  in  the  beliefs  of  wRS  pointed  0ut  by  the  greatest  of  living  psy- 

true  nature,  as  elementary  facts  u  tests  &nd  checks  of  belief  have,  in- 

chologists,  Professor  Al«an  «  ^  ^ philosophers  as  their  only  proper  evidence; 

deed,  always  appeared  «■  g  j  intellectual  phases  of  the  mind.  But 

and  beliefs  themselves  have  appeared  as  pmdy,  J  ^  ^  ^  ^ 

Bain  has  defined  them  in  respect ■»  e'  or  a  ^  on  ollr  simplest,  most  limited 

„,e  tendenctes  we  hav  ud  o  P  in  intellectual  Id* 

“r^=sLn  generally  discredited,  with  the  exception  of  what  are 

designated  specially  bs ^  e™pmC^^ve  process  we  have  here  described  bears  only  a 
It  may  be  objected  th  g  ^  essendal  reSemblance,  to  Natural  Selection  in  the 

remote  and  j  perhaps,  sufficient  to  reply  (as  in  the  case  of  the  origin 

organic  wor  d  .  But  Jotbs  ,  P  ^  ^  ^  ^  a  true  expression  of  the  law, -it  is  to 

of  language),  that  •  nrecise  definition,— then  the  development  of  the 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  we  ow e  q{.  k .  for  Qur  knowledges  and  rational  beliefs  re¬ 
individual  mind  presents  ^  J  the  fittest  am0ng  our  original  and  sponta- 

sult,  truly  and  UeraUy  speech)  u  is  true>  that  this  “survival  of  the  fittest” 

neous  beliefs  It  Y  &  „  struggle  for  existence  ”  among  our  primitive  beliefs , 

ImSstes'criprion  is’ equally  figurative  as  applied  .0  Natural  Selection  in  the  organtc 

"  The  application  of  ^tlnlid^Ius"' "»  'dS 

said,  the  faculties  wlth.^  ^  the  faculty  of  using  and  inventing  language.  How  Natu- 
that  most  efficient  aux  «  Y,  _  .  not  so  easy  to  trace,  and  is  an  almost  wholly 

ml  Selection  could  ^vemugi ^  faculty  consists  essentially,  as  we  have  supposed,  in  a 
speculative  ques  *  .  ^  spontaneous  over  the  passive  powers  of  the  brain,  effect- 

preponderance  ot  t  ,  mind  while  the  latter  simply  result  in  the 

L  turning-hach  or  actron  of  „eed  J  depend  on  the 

following-out  or  sagacous  h  ,  ^  of  (he  powers  that  depend  on  itsquan- 

absolute  sire  of  the  br  1  ,  *  yVe  should  naturally  suppose,  therefore,  that  the 

tity  to  those  that  depend  o  q  y.  ^  creatures,  perhaps  much  less  so  than  the 

earliest  men  J  most  likely,  very  social;  even  more  so,  perhaps, 

present  uncivilized  races,  Bu  V  &  strong  mQtive  t0  caU  this  complicated 

than  the  sagacious  savage  for  be  c  bserved  that  sagacity  and 

and  difficult  mental  action  into  exercise ;  and  it  is  ev  en  now 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


IX7 


erly  be  called  a  problem),  the  origin  of  sensation  or  simple  con¬ 
sciousness,  the  problem  par  excellence  of  pedantic  garrulity  or 
philosophical  childishness.  Questions  of  the  special  physical 
antecedents,  concomitants,  and  consequents  of  special  sensa¬ 
tions  will  doubtless  continue  to  be  the  legitimate  objects  of 
empirical  researches  and  of  important  generalizations;  and 
such  researches  may  succeed  in  reducing  all  other  facts  of  actual 
"experience,  all  our  knowledge  of  nature,  and  all  our  thoughts 
and  emotions  to  intelligible  modifications  of  these  simple  and 
fundamental  existences ;  but  the  attempt  to  reduce  sensation 
to  anything  but  sensation  is  as  gratuitous  and  as  devoid  of  any 
suggestion  or  guidance  of  experience,  as  the  attempt  to  reduce 
the  axioms  of  the  mathematical  or  mechanical  sciences  to 
simpler  orders  of  universal  facts.  In  one  sense  material  phe¬ 
nomena,  or  physical  objective  states,  are  causes  or  effects  of 
sensations,  bearing  as  they  do  the  invariable  relations  to  them 
of  antecedents,  or  concomitants,  or  consequents.  But  these 
are  essentially  empirical  relations,  explicable  perhaps  by  more 
and  more  generalized  empirical  laws,  but  approaching  in  this 
way  never  one  step  nearer  to  an  explanation  of  material  con¬ 
ditions  by  mental  laws,  or  of  mental  natures  by  the  forces  of 
matter.  Matter  and  mind  co-exist.  There  are  no  scientific 
principles  by  which  either  can  be  determined  to  be  the  cause 


i 

jf 


sociability  are  not  commonly  united  in  high  degrees  even  among  civilized  men.  Growths 
both  in  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the  brain  are,  therefore,  equally  probable  in  the  history  of 
human  development,  with  always  a  preponderance  of  the  advantages  which  depend  upon 
quantity.  But  the  present  superiority  of  the  most  civilized  races,  so  far  as  it  is  independent 
of  any  external  inheritance  of  arts,  knowledges,  and  institutions,  would  appear  to  depend 
chiefly  upon  the  quality  of  their  brains,  and  upon  characteristics  belonging  to  their  moral 
and  emotional  natures  rather  than  the  intellectual,  since  the  intellectual  acquisitions  of 
civilization  are  more  easily  communicated  by  education  to  the  savage  than  the  refine¬ 
ments  of  its  moral  and  emotional  characteristics.  Though  all  records  and  traces  of  this 
development  are  gone,  and  a  wide  gulf  separates  the  lowest  man  from  the  highest  brute 
animal,  yet  elements  exist  by  which  we  may  trace  the  succession  of  utilities  and  advan¬ 
tages  that  have  determined  the  transition.  The  most  essential  are  those  of  the  social  nat¬ 
ure  of  man,  involving  mutual  assistance  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Instrumental  to 
these  aie  his  mental  powers,  developed  by  his  social  nature,  and  by  the  reflective  char¬ 
acter  of  his  brain’s  action  into  a  general  and  common  intelligence,  instead  of  the  special¬ 
ized  instincts  and  sagacities  characteristic  of  other  animals ;  and  from  these  came  lan¬ 
guage,  and  thence  all  the  arts,  knowledges,  governments,  traditions,  all  the  external  in¬ 
heritances,  which,  reacting  on  his  social  nature,  have  induced  the  sentiments  of  morality, 
worship,  and  refinement;  at  which  gazing  as  in  a  mirror  he  sees  his  past,  and  thinks  it 
his  future. 


1 18 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  the  other.  Still,  so  far  as  scientific  evidence  goes,  mind  ex¬ 
ists  in  direct  and  peculiar  relations  to  a  certain  form  cf  matter, 
the  organic,  which  is  not  a  different  kind,  though  the  proper¬ 
ties  of  no  other  forms  are  in  themselves  capable,  so  far  as  sci¬ 
entific  observation  has  yet  determined,  of  giving  rise  to  it. 
The  materials  and  the  forces  of  organisms  are  both  derived 
from  other  forms  of  matter,  as  well  as  from  the  organic ;  but 
the  organic  form  itself  appears  to  be  limited  to  the  productive 
powers  of  matters  and  forces  which  already  have  this  form. 

The  transcendental  doctrine  of  development  (which  is  not 
wholly  transcendental,  since  it  is  guided,  at  least  vaguely,  by  the 
scientific  principles  of  cause  and  effect,  or  by  the  continuities 
and  uniformities  of  natural  phenomena)  assumes  that  in  the 
past  course  of  nature  the  forms  as  well  as  the  materials  and 
forces  of  organic  matter  had  at  one  time  a  causal  connection 
with  other  forms  of  material  existence.  Mental  natures,  and 
especially  the  simplest,  or  sensations,  would  have  had,  accord¬ 
ing  to  this  assumption,  a  more  universal  relation  of  immediate 
connection*  than  we  now  know  with  properties  of  the  sort  that 
we  call  material.  Still,  by  the  analogies  of  experience  they 
cannot  be  regarded  as  having  been  either  causes  or  effects  of 
them.  Our  ignorances,  or  the  as  yet  unexplored  possibilities 
of  nature,  seem  far  preferable  to  the  vagueness  of  this  theory, 
which,  in  addition  to  the  continuities  and  uniformities  univer¬ 
sally  exhibited  in  nature,  assumes  transcendentally,  as  a  uni¬ 
versal  first  principle,  the  law  of  progressive  change ,  or  a  law 
which  is  not  universally  exemplified  by  the  course  of  nature. 
We  say,  and  say  truly,  that  a  stone  has  no  sensation,  since  it 
exhibits  none  of  the  signs  that  indicate  the  existence  of  sensa¬ 
tions.  It  is  not  only  a  purely  objective  existence,  like  every¬ 
thing  else  in  nature,  except  our  own  individual  self-consciousness, 
but  its  properties  indicate  to  us  no  other  than  this  purely  ob¬ 
jective  existence,  unless  it  be  the  existence  of  God.  To  suppose 
that  its  properties  could  possibly  result  in  a  sensitive  nature,  not 
previously  existing  or  co-existing  with  them,  is  to  reason  entirely 
beyond  the  guidance  and  analogies  of  experience.  It  is  a  purely 
gratuitous  supposition,  not  only  metaphysical  or  transcendental, 
but  also  materialistic ;  that  is,  it  is  not  only  asking  a  foolish  ques- 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


119 

lion,  but  giving  a  still  more  foolish  answer  to  it.  In  short,  the 
metaphysical  problem  may  be  reduced  to  an  attempt  to  break 
down  the  most  fundamental  antithesis  of  all  experience,  by  de¬ 
manding  to  know  of  its  terms  which  of  them  is  the  other.  To 
this  sort  of  fatuity  belongs,  we  think,  the  mystical  doctrine  which 
Mr.  Wallace  is  inclined  to  adopt,  “that  force  is  a  product  of 
mind”;  which  means,  so  far  as  it  is  intelligible,  that  forces,  or 
the  physical  antecedents  and  conditions  of  motion  (appre¬ 
hended,  it  is  true,  along  with  motion  itself,  through  our  sensa¬ 
tions  and  volitions),  yet  bear  to  our  mental  natures  the  still 
closer  relation  of  resemblance  to  the  prime  agency  of  the  Will ; 
or  it  means  that  “all  force  is  probably  will-force.”  Not  only 
does  this  assumed  mystical  resemblance,  expressed  by  the  word 
“  will-force,”  contradict  the  fundamental  antithesis  of  subject 
and  object  phenomena  (as  the  word  “mind-matter”  would), 
but  it  fails  to  receive  any  confirmation  from  the  law  of  the 
correlation  of  the  physical  forces.  All  the  motions  of  animals, 
both  voluntary  and  involuntary,  are  traceable  to  the  efficiency 
of  equivalent  material  forces  in  the  animal’s  physical  organiza¬ 
tion.  The  cycles  of  equivalent  physical  forces  are  complete, 
even  when  their  courses  lie  through  the  voluntary  actions  of 
animals,  without  the  introduction  of  conscious  or  mental  con¬ 
ditions.  The  sense  of  effort  is  not  a  form  of  force.  The  pain¬ 
ful  or  pleasurable  sensations  that  accompany  the  conversions 
of  force  in  conscious  volitions  are  not  a  consciousness  of  this 
force  itself,  nor  even  a  proper  measure  of  it.  The  Will  is  not  a 
measurable  quantity  of  energy,  with  its  equivalents  in  terms  of 
heat,  or  falling-force,  or  chemical  affinity,  or  the  energy  of  mo¬ 
tion,  unless  we  identify  it  with  the  vital  energies  of  the  organ¬ 
ism,  which  are,  however  (unfortunately  for  this  hypothesis),  the 
causes  of  the  involuntary  movements  of  an  animal,  as  well  as 
of  its  proper  volitions  considered  from  their  physical  side. 

But  Mr.  Wallace  is  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  Will  is 
an  incident  force,  regulating  and  controlling  the  action  of  the 
physical  forces  of  the  vital  machine,  but  contributing,  even  in 
this  capacity,  some  part  at  least  to  the  actual  moving  forces  of 
the  living  frame.  He  says: 

“However  delicately  a  machine  may  be  constructed,  with  the  most  ex- 


120 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


quisitely  contrived  detents  to  release  a  weight  or  spring  by  the  exertion 
of  the  smallest  possible  amount  of  force,  some  external  force  will  always 
be  required;  so  in  the  animal  machine,  however  minute  may  be  the 
changes  required  in  the  cells  or  fibres  of  the  brain,  to  set  in  motion  the 
nerve  currents  that  loosen  or  excite  the  pent-up  forces  of  certain  muscles, 
some  force  must  be  required  to  effect  those  changes.” 

And  this  force  he  supposes  to  be  the  Will.  This  is  the  most  in¬ 
telligible  materialism  we  have  ever  met  with  in  the  discussions 
of  this  subject.  It  is  true  that  in  a  machine,  not  only  the  main 
efficient  forces,  but  also  the  incident  and  regulating  ones,  are 
physical  forces;  and  however  small  the  latter  may  be,  they  are 
still  of  the  same  nature,  and  are  comparable  in  amount  with 
the  main  efficient  forces.  But  is  not  this  one  of  the  most  es¬ 
sential  differences  between  a  machine  and  a  sensitive  organ¬ 
ism?  Is  it  impossible,  then,  that  nature  has  contrived  an  in¬ 
finitely  more  perfect  machine  than  human  art  can  invent, — 
machinery  which  involves  the  powers  of  art  itself,  if  it  be 
proper  to  call  that  contrivance  a  machine,  in  which  the  regu¬ 
lating  causes  are  of  a  wholly  different  nature  from  the  efficient 
forces  ?  May  it  not  be  that  sensations  and  mental  conditions, 
generally,  are  regulating  causes  which  add  nothing,  like  the 
force  of  the  hand  of  the  engineer  to  the  powers  which  he  con¬ 
trols  in  his  machine,  and  subtract  nothing,  as  an  automatic  ap¬ 
paratus  does,  from  such  powers  in  the  further  regulation  of  the 
machine?  We  may  not  be  able  to  understand  how  such  reg¬ 
ulation  is  possible;  how  sensations  and  other  mental  conditions 
can  restrain,  excite,  and  combine  the  conversions  of  physical 
forces  in  the  cycles  into  which  they  themselves  do  not  enter; 
though  there  is  a  type  of  such  regulation  in  the  principles  of 
theoretical  mechanics,  in  the  actions  of  forces  which  do  not  af¬ 
fect  the  quantities  of  the  actual  or  potential  energies  of  a  sys¬ 
tem  of  moving  bodies,  but  simply  the  form  of  the  movement, 
as  in  the  rod  of  the  simple  pendulum.  Such  regulation  in  the 
sensitive  organism  is  more  likely  to  be  an  ultimate  inexplicable 
fact;  but  it  is  clear  that  even  in  a  machine  the  amounts  of  the 
regulating  forces  bear  no  definite  relations  to  the  powers  they 
control,  and  might,  so  far  as  these  are  directly  concerned,  be 
reduced  to  nothing  as  forces;  and  in  many  cases  they  are  re¬ 
duced  to  a  minimum  of  the  force  of  friction.  They  must, 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


1 2  I 


however,  be  something  in  amount  in  a  machine,  because  they  are 
physical ,  and,  like  all  physical  forces,  must  be  derived  in 
quantity  from  pre-existing  forms  of  force.  To  infer  from  this 
that  the  Will  must  add  something  to  the  forces  of  the  organism 
is,  therefore,  to  assume  for  it  a  material  nature.  But  Mr. 
Wallace  escapes,  or  appears  to  think  (as  others  think  who  hold 
this  view)  that  he  escapes,  from  complete  materialism  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  the  Will.  Though  he  makes  the 
Will  an  efficient  physical  force,  he  does  not  allow  it  to  be  a 
physical  effect.  In  other  words,  he  regards  the  Will  as  an  ab¬ 
solute  source  of  physical  energy,  continually  adding,  though  in 
small  amounts,  to  the  store  of  the  forces  of  nature ;  a  sort  of 
molecular  leakage  of  energy  from  an  absolute  source  into  the 
nervous  system  of  animals,  or,  at  least,  of  men.  This,  though 
in  our  opinion  an  unnecessary  and  very  improbable  hypothesis, 
is  not  inconceivable.  It  is  improbable,  inasmuch  as  it  denies 
to  the  Will  a  character  common  to  the  physical  forces  with 
which  the  Will  is  otherwise  assimilated  by  this  theory,— the 
character,  namely,  of  being  an  effect  in  measurable  amount  as 
well  as  a  cause,  or  the  character  of  belonging  to  cycles  of 
changes  related  by  invariable  quantities;  but  as  we  do  not  re¬ 
gard  the  conservation  of*  force  as  a  necessary  law  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,  we  are  able  to  comprehend  Mr.  Wallace’s  position.  It 
is  the  metaphysical  method  of  distinguishing  a  machine  from 
a  sensitive  organism.  But  we  do  not  see  why  Mr.  Wallace  is 
not  driven  by  it  to  the  dilemma  of  assuming  free-wills  for  all 
sentient  organisms;  or  else  of  assuming,  with  Descartes,  that 
all  but  men  are  machines.  The  latter  alternative  would, 
doubtless,  redound  most  effectively  to  the  metaphysical  digni¬ 
ty  of  human  nature.  Mr.  Wallace  appears  to  think  that  un¬ 
less  we  can  attribute  to  the  Will  some  efficiency  or  quantity  of 
energy,  its  agency  must  be  regarded  as  a  nullity,  and  our  appar¬ 
ent  consciousness  of  its  influence  as  an  illusion ;  but  this  opin¬ 
ion  appears  to  be  based  on  the  still  broader  assumption,  which 
seems  to  us  erroneous,  that  all  causation  is  reducible  to  the 
conversions  of  equivalent  physical  energies.  It  may  be  true 
(at  least  we  are  not  prepared  to  dispute  the  assumption)  that 
every  case  of  real  causation  involves  such  conversions  or 
6 


122 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


changes  in  forms  of  energy,  or  that  every  effect  involves  changes 
of  position  and  motion.  Nevertheless,  every  case  of  real 
causation  may  still  involve  also  another  mode  of  causation. 

A  much  simpler  conception  than  our  author’s  theory, 
and  one  that  seems  to  us  far  more  probable  is  that  the 
phenomena  of  conscious  volition  involve  in  themselves  no 
proper  efficiencies  or  forces  coming  under  the  law  of  the 
conservation  of  force,  but  are  rather  natural  types  of  causes, 
purely  and  absolutely  regulative ,  which  add  nothing  to,  and 
subtract  nothing  from,  the  quantities  of  natural  forces.  No 
doubt  there  is  in  the  actions  of  the  nervous  system  a  much 
closer  resemblance  than  this  to  a  machine.  No  doubt  it  is 
automatically  regulated,  as  well  as  moved,  by  physical 
forces ;  but  this  is  probably  just  in  proportion  as  its  agency 
— as  in  our  habits  and  instincts  —  is  removed  from  our  con¬ 
scious  control.  All  this  machinery  is  below,  beyond,  ex¬ 
ternal,  or  foreign  to  our  consciousness.  The  profoundest,  most 
attentive  introspection  gains  not  a  glimpse  of  its  activity,  nor 
do  we  ever  dream  of  its  existence ;  but  both  by  the  laws  of  its 
operations,  and  by  the  means  through  which  we  become 
aware  of  its  existence,  it  stands  in  the  broadest,  most  funda¬ 
mental  contrast  to  our  mental  natures ;  and  these,  so  far  from 
furnishing  a  type  of  physical  efficiency  in  our  conscious  voli¬ 
tions,  seem  to  us  rather,  in  accordance  with  their  general  con¬ 
trast  with  material  phenomena,  to  afford  a  type  of  purely  reg¬ 
ulative  causes,  or  of  an  absolutely  forceless  and  unresisted 
control  and  regulation  of  those  forces  of  nature  which  are 
comprised  in  the  powers  of  organic  life.  Perhaps  a  still  higher 
type  of  such  regulation  is  to  be  found  in  those  “laws  of 
nature,”  which,  without  adding  to,  or  subtracting  from,  the 
real  forces  of  nature,  determine  the  order  of  their  conversions 
by  “ fixed ,  stated,  or  settled ”  rules  of  succession;  and  these 
may  govern  also,  and  probably  do  govern,  the  successions  of 
our  mental  or  self-conscious  states,  both  in  themselves  and  in 
their  relations  to  material  conditions.  Simple,  absolute,  inva¬ 
riable  rules  of  succession  in  phenomena,  both  physical  and 
mental,  constitute  the  most  abstract  conception  we  can  have  of 
causal  relations ;  but  they  appear  under  two  chief  classes,  the 


LIMITS  OF  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


123 


physical  laws  which  determine  the  possible  relations  of  the 
forms  of  force,  and  those  which  are  also  concerned  in  the  still 
further  determination  of  its  actual  orders  of  succession,  or 
which,  by  their  combinations  in  the  intricate  web  of  uniformities 
in  nature,  both  mental  and  physical,  determine  the  events  in 
particular  that  in  relation  to  the  laws  of  force  are  only  deter¬ 
mined  in  general.  The  proper  laws  of  force,  or  of  the  con¬ 
versions  of  energy,  are  concerned  exclusively  with  relations  in 
space.  Relations  in  time  are  governed  by  the  other  class  of 
laws.  Thus,  in  the  abstract  theory  of  the  pendulum,  the 
phenomena  of  force  involved  are  limited  simply  to  the  vertical 
rise  and  fall  of  the  weight,  upon  which  alone  the  amounts  of 
its  motions  depend.  The  times  of  its  vibrations  are  deter-  • 
mined  by  the  regulating  length  of  the  rod,  which  in  theory  adds 
nothing  to,  and  subtracts  nothing  from,  the  efficient  mutually 
convertible  forces  of  motion  and  gravity.  What  is  here 
assumed  in  theory  to  be  true,  we  assume  to  be  actually  and 
absolutely  true  of  mental  agencies. 

But  it  may  be  said,  and  it  often  is  said,  “  that  this  theory  of 
the  Will’s  agency  is  directly  contradicted  in  both  its  features 
by  consciousness ;  that  we  are  immediately  conscious  both  of 
energy  and  freedom  in  willing.”  There  is  much  in  our  voli¬ 
tional  consciousness  to  give  countenance  to  this  contradiction  ; 
but  it  is  only  such  as  dreams  give  to  contradictions  of  rational 
experience.  The  words  “  force,”  “  energy,”  “  effort,”  “  resist¬ 
ance,”  “conflict,”  all  point  to  states  of  feeling  in  our  volitional 
consciousness  which  seem  to  a  superficial  observation  to  be 
true  intuitions  of  spontaneous  self-originated  causes ;  and  it  is 
only  when  these  states  of  feeling  are  tested  by  the  scientific 
definitions  and  the  objective  measure  of  forces,  and  by  the 
orders  of  the  conversions  of  force,  that  they  are  found  to  be 
only  vague,  subjective  accompaniments,  instead  of  distinct  ob¬ 
jective  apprehensions  or  perceptions  of  what  “force”  signifies 
in  science.  Such  tests  prove  them  to  be  like  the  complement¬ 
ary  or  subjective  colors  of  vision.  In  one  sense  they  are  in¬ 
tuitions  of  force,  our  only  intuitions  of  it  (as  the  aspects  of 
nature  are  our  only  intuitions  of  the  system  of  the  world) ;  but 
they  are  not  true  perceptions,  since  they  do  not  afford,  each 


124 


\ 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 

feeling  in  itself,  definite  and  invariable  indications  of  force  as 
an  objective  existence,  or  as  affecting  all  minds  alike.  Even 
the  sense  of  weight  is  no  proper  measure  of  weight  as  an  ele¬ 
ment  of  force ;  and  the  muscular  effort  of  lifting  is  only  a 
vague  and  variable  perception  of  this  conversion  of  force,  and 
does  not  afford  even  a  hint  of  the  great  law  of  the  conserva¬ 
tion  and  convertibility  of  forces,  but,  on  the  contrary,  seems  to 
contradict  it.  The  muscular  feeling  of  resistance  to  motion  or 
to  a  change  of  motion  is  an  equally  vague  measure  of  inertia. 
Indeed,  the  feelings  of  weight  and  resistance,  which  are  often 
regarded  as  intuitions  of  gravity  and  inertia,  are  insusceptible 
of  precise  measurement  or  numerical  comparison;  and  though 
capable  of  being  trained  to  some  degree  of  precision  in  esti¬ 
mating  what  is  properly  measured  by  other  means,  they  could 
never  have  revealed  through  their  unaided  indications  the  law 
of  the  fixed  and  universal  proportionality  of  these  two  forces. 
The  feeling  of  effort  itself  (more  or  less  intense,  and  more  or 
less  painful,  according  to  circumstances,  which  are  quite  irrel¬ 
evant  to  its  apparent  effect)  appears  by  the  testimony  of  con¬ 
sciousness  to  be  the  immediate  cause  of  the  work  which  is 
done,  — work  really  done  by  forces  in  the  vital  organism, 
which  only  the  most  recondite  researches  of  science  have  dis¬ 
closed.  But  if  this  much-vaunted  authority  of  immediate  con¬ 
sciousness  so  blunders  in  even  the  simplest  cases,  how  can  our 
author  or  any  judicious  thinker  trust  its  unconfirmed,  unsup¬ 
ported  testimony  in  regard  to  the  agency  of  the  Will  ?  Is  it 
not  like  trusting  the  testimony  of  the  senses  as  to  the  immo¬ 
bility  of  the  earth  ? 

With  hardly  a  point,  therefore,  of  Mr.  Wallace’s  concluding 
essay  are  we  able  to  agree ;  and  this  impresses  us  the  more, 
since  we  find  nothing  in  the  rest  of  his  book  which  appears  to 
us  to  call  for  serious  criticism,  but  many  things,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  which  command  our  most  cordial  admiration.  We  ac¬ 
count  for  it  by  the  supposition  that  his  metaphysical  views, 
carefully  excluded  from  his  scientific  work,  are  the  results  of 
an  earlier  and  less  severe  training  than  that  which  has  secured 
to  us  his  valuable  positive  contributions  to  the  theory  of  Nat¬ 
ural  Selection.  Mr.  Wallace  himself  is  fully  aware  of  this  con- 


LIMITS  OF  NA  TURAL  SELECTION. 


I25 

trast,  and  anticipates  a  scornful  rejection  of  his  theory  by  many 
who  in  other  respects  agree  with  him. 

The  doctrines  of  the  special  and  prophetic  providences  and 
decrees  of  God,  and  of  the  metaphysical  isolation  of  human 
nature,  are  based,  after  all,  on  barbaric  conceptions  of  dignity, 
which  are  restricted  in  their  application  by  every  step  forward 
in  the  progress  of  science.  And  the  sense  of  security  they 
give  us  of  the  most  sacred  things  is  more  than  replaced  by  the 
ever-growing  sense  of  the  universality  of  inviolable  laws, — 
laws  that  underlie  our  sentiments  and  desires,  as  well  as  all 
that  these  can  rationally  regard  in  the  outer  world.  It  is  un¬ 
fortunate  that  the  prepossessions  of  religious  sentiment  in  favor 
of  metaphysical  theories  should  make  the  progress  of  science 
always  seem  like  an  indignity  to  religion,  or  a  detraction  from 
what  is  held  as  most  sacred;  yet  the  responsibility  for  this  be¬ 
longs  neither  to  the  progress  of  science  nor  to  true  religious 
sentiment,  but  to  a  false  conservatism,  an  irrational  respect  for 
the  ideas  and  motives  of  a  philosophy  which  finds  it  more  and 
more  difficult  with  every  advance  of  knowledge  to  reconcile 
its  assumptions  with  facts  of  observation. 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES.* 


It  is  now  nearly  twelve  years  since  the  discussion  of  that 
“  mystery  of  mysteries,”  the  origin  of  species,  was  re-opened  by 
the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  Mr.  Darwin’s  most  re¬ 
markable  work.  Again  and  again  in  the  history  of  scientific 
debate  this  question  had  been  discussed,  and,  after  exciting  a 
short-lived  interest,  had  been  condemned  by  cautious  and  con¬ 
servative  thinkers  to  the  limbo  of  insoluble  problems  or  to  the 
realm  of  religious  mystery.  They  had,  therefore,  sufficient 
grounds,  a  priori ,  for  anticipating  that  a  similar  fate  would 
attend  this  new  revival  of  the  question,  and  that,  in  a  few 
years,  no  more  would  be  heard  of  the  matter;  that  the  same 
condemnation  awaited  this  movement  which  had  overwhelmed 
the  venturesome  speculations  of  Lamarck  and  of  the  author  of 
the  “Vestiges  of  Creation.”  This  not  unnatural  anticipation 
has  been,  however,  most  signally  disappointed.  But  what 
can  we  say  has  really  been  accomplished  by  this  debate ; 
and  what  reasons  have  we  for  believing  that  the  judgment 
of  conservative  thinkers  will  not,  in  the  main,  be  proved 
right  after  all,  though  present  indications  are  against  them? 
One  permanent  consequence,  at  least,  will  remain,  in  the 
great  additions  to  our  knowledge  of  natural  history,  and  of 
general  physiology,  or  theoretical  biology,  which  the  discus¬ 
sion  has  produced;  though  the  greater  part  of  this  positive 
contribution  to  science  is  still  to  be  credited  directly  to  Mr. 
Darwin’s  works,  and  even  to  his  original  researches.  But, 
besides  this,  an  advantage  has  been  gained  which  cannot  be 
too  highly  estimated.  Orthodoxy  has  been  won  over  to  the 


*  From  the  North  American  Review,  July,  1871. 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


127 


doctrine  of  evolution.  In  asserting  this  result,  however,  we 
are  obliged  to  make  what  will  appear  to  many  persons  impor¬ 
tant  qualifications  and  explanations.  We  do  not  mean  that 
the  heads  of  leading  religious  bodies,  even  in  the  most  enlight¬ 
ened  communities,  are  yet  willing  to  withdraw  the  dogma  that 
the  origin  of  species  is  a  special  religous  mystery,  or  even  to 
assent  to  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  as  a  legitimate  question 
for  scientific  inquiry.  We  mean  only,  that  many  eminent  stu¬ 
dents  of  science,  who  claim  to  be  orthodox,  and  who  are  cer¬ 
tainly  actuated  as  much  by  a  spirit  of  reverence  as  by  scientific 
inquisitiveness,  have  found  means  of  reconciling  the  general 
doctrine  of  evolution  with  the  dogmas  they  regard  as  essential 
to  religion.  Even  to  those  whose  interest  in  the  question  is 
mainly  scientific  this  result  is  a  welcome  one,  as  opening  the 
way  for  a  freer  discussion  of  subordinate  questions,  less  tram¬ 
meled  by  the  religious  prejudices  which  have  so  often  been 
serious  obstacles  to  the  progress  of  scientific  researches. 

But  again,  in  congratulating  ourselves  on  this- result,  we  are 
obliged  to  limit  it  to  the  doctrine  of  evolution  in  its  most  gen¬ 
eral  form,  the  theory  common  to  Lamarck’s  zoological  philos¬ 
ophy,  to  the  views  of  the  author  of  the  “Vestiges  of  Creation,” 
to  the  general  conclusions  of  Mr.  Darwin’s  and  Mr.  Wallace’s 
theory  of  Natural  Selection,  to  Mr.  Spencer’s  general  doctrine 
of  evolution,  and  to  a  number  of  minor  explanations  of  the 
processes  by  which  races  of  animals  and  plants  have  been  de¬ 
rived  by  descent  from  different  ancestral  forms.  What  is  no 
longer  regarded  with  suspicion  as  secretly  hostile  to  religious 
beliefs  by  many  truly  religious  thinkers  is  that  which  is  denoted 
in  common  by  the  various  names  “transmutation,”  “develop¬ 
ment,”  “derivation,”  “evolution,”  and  “descent  with  modifi¬ 
cation.”  These  terms  are  synonymous  in  their  primary  and 
general  signification,  but  refer  secondarily  to  various  hypoth¬ 
eses  of  the  processes  of  derivation.  But  there  is  a  choice 
among  them  on  historical  grounds,  and  with  reference  to  as¬ 
sociations,  which  are  of  some  importance  from  a  theological 
point  of  view.  “Transmutation”  and  “development”  are 
under  ban.  “  Derivation  ”  is,  perhaps,  the  most  innocent 
word;  though  “evolution”  will  probably  prevail,  since,  spite 


128 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  its  etymological  implication,  it  has  lately  become  most 
acceptable,  not  only  to  the  theological  critics  of  the  theory, 
but  to  its  scientific  advocates;  although,  from  the  neutral 
ground  of  experimental  science,  “  descent  with  modification  ” 
is  the  most  pertinent  and  least  exceptionable  name. 

While  the  general  doctrine  of  evolution  has  thus  been  suc¬ 
cessfully  redeemed  from  theological  condemnation,  this  is  not 
yet  true  of  the  subordinate  hypothesis  of  Natural  Selection,  to 
the  partial  success  of  which  this  change  of  opinion  is,  in  great 
measure,  due.  It  is,  at  first  sight,  a  paradox  that  the  views 
most  peculiar  to  the  eminent  naturalist,  whose  work  has  been 
chiefly  instrumental  in  effecting  this  change  of  opinion,  should 
still  be  rejected  or  regarded  with  suspicion  by  those  who  have 
nevertheless  been  led  by  him  to  adopt  the  general  hypothesis, 
— an  hypothesis  which  his  explanations  have  done  so  much  to 
render  credible.  It  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  that  Mr.  Dar¬ 
win  has  won  a  victory,  not  for  himself,  but  for  Lamarck. 
Transmutation,  it  would  seem,  has  been  accepted,  but  Natural 
Selection,  its  explanation,  is  still  rejected  by  many  converts  to 
the  general  theory,  both  on  religious  and  scientific  grounds. 
But  too  much  weight  might  easily  be  attributed  to  the  deduct¬ 
ive  or  explanatory  part  of  the  evidence,  on  which  the  doctrine 
of  evolution  has  come  to  rest.  In  the  half-century  preceding 
the  publication  of  the  “Origin  of  Species,”  inductive  evidence 
on  the  subject  had  accumulated,  greatly  outweighing  all  that 
was  previously  known;  and  the  “Origin  of  Species”  is  not 
less  remarkable  as  a  compend  and  discussion  of  this  evidence 
than  for  the  ingenuity  of  its  explanations.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
to  what  is  now  known  as  “  Darwinism  ”  that  the  prevalence  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  to  be  attributed,  at  least  directly. 
Still,  most  of  this  effect  is  due  to  Mr.  Darwin’s  work,  and 
something  undoubtedly  to  the  indirect  influence  of  reasonings 
that  are  regarded  with  distrust  by  those  who  accept  their  con¬ 
clusions  ;  for  opinions  are  contagious,  even  where  their  reasons 
are  resisted. 

The  most  effective  general  criticism  of  the  theory  of  Natural 
Selection  which  has  yet  appeared,  and,  at  the  same  time,  one 
which  is  likely  to  exert  great  influence  in  overcoming  the  re- 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


129 


maining  prejudice  against  the  general  doctrine  of  evolution,  is 
the  work  of  Mr.  St.  George  Mivart  “  On  the  Genesis  of 
Species.”  Though  the  work  falls  short  of  what- we  might  have 
expected  from  an  author  of  Mr.  Mivart’s  attainments  as  a 
naturalist,  yet  his  position  before  the  religious  world,  and  his 
unquestionable  familiarity  with  the  theological  bearings  of  his 
subject,  will  undoubtedly  gain  for  him  and  for  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  a  hearing  and  a  credit,  which  might  be  denied  to 
the  mere  student  of  science.  His  work  is  mainly  a  critique  of 
“Darwinism”;  that  is,  of  the  theories  peculiar  to  Mr.  Darwin 
and  the  “  Darwinians,”  as  distinguished  from  the  believers  in 
the  general  doctrine  of  evolution  which  our  author  accepts. 
He  also  puts  forward  an  hypothesis  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Dar¬ 
win’s  doctrine  of  the  predominant  influence  of  Natural  Selec¬ 
tion  in  the  generation  of  organic  species,  and  their  relation  to 
the  conditions  of  their  existence.  On  this  hypothesis,  called 
“Specific  Genesis,”  an  organism,  though  at  any  one  time  a 
fixed  and  determinate  species,  approximately  adapted  to  sur¬ 
rounding  conditions  of  existence,  is  potentially,  and  by  innate 
potential  combinations  of  organs  and  faculties,  adapted  to 
many  other  conditions  of  existence.  It  passes,  according  to 
the  hypothesis,  from  one  form  to  another  of  specific  “mani¬ 
festation,”  abruptly  and  discontinuously  in  conformity  to  the 
emergencies  of  its  outward  life ;  but  in  any  condition  to  which 
it  is  tolerably  adapted  it  retains  a  stable  form,  subject  to  varia¬ 
tion  only  within  determinate  limits,  like  oscillations  in  a  stable 
equilibrium.  For  this  conception  our  author  is  indebted  to 
Mr.  Galton,  who,  in  his  work  on  “  Hereditary  Genius,”  “com¬ 
pares  the  development  of  species  with  a  many-faceted  spheroid 
tumbling  over  from  one  facet  or  stable  equilibrium  to  another. 
The  existence  of  internal  conditions  in  animals,”  Mr.  Mivart 
adds  (p.  iii),  “corresponding  with  such  facets  is  denied  by 
pure  Darwinians,  but  it  is  contended  in  this  work  that  some¬ 
thing  may  also  be  said  for  their  existence.” 

There  are  many  facts  of  variation,  numerous  cases  of  abrupt 
changes  in  individuals  both  of  natural  and  domesticated  species, 
which,  of  course,  no  Darwinian  or  physiologist  denies,  and  of 
which  Natural  Selection  professes  to  offer  no  direct  explanation. 


13° 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


The  causes  of  these  phenomena,  and  their  relations  to  external 
conditions  of  existence,  are  matters  quite  independent  of  the 
principle  of  Natural  Selection,  except  so  far  as  they  may  di¬ 
rectly  affect  the  animal’s  or  plant’s  well-being,  with  the  origin 
of  which  this  principle  is  alone  concerned.  General  physi¬ 
ology  has  classified  some  of  these  sudden  variations  under 
such  names  as  “reversion”  and  “atavism,”  or  returns  more 
or  less  complete  to  ancestral  forms.  Others  have  been  con¬ 
nected  together  under  the  law  of  “correlated  or  concomitant 
variations,”  changes  that,  when  they  take  place,  though  not 
known  to  be  physically  dependent  on  each  other,  yet  usually 
or  often  occur  together.  Some  cases  of  this  law  have  been  re¬ 
ferred  to  the  higher,  more  fundamental  laws  of  homological 
variations,  or  variations  occurring  together  on  account  of  the 
relationships  of  homology,  or  due  to  similarities  and  physical 
relations  between  parts  of  organisms,  in  tissues,  organic  con¬ 
nections,  and  modes  of  growth.  Other  variations  are  explained 
by  the  laws  and  causes  that  determine  monstrous  growths. 
Others  again  are  quite  inexplicable  as  yet,  or  cannot  yet  be 
referred  to  any  general  law  or  any  known  antecedents.  These 
comprise,  indeed,  the  most  common  cases.  The  almost  uni¬ 
versal  prevalence  of  well-marked  phenomena  of  variation  in 
species,  the  absolutely  universal  fact  that  no  two  individual 
organisms  are  exactly  alike,  and  that  the  description  of  a 
species  is  necessarily  abstract  and  in  many  respects  by  means 
of  averages,  —  these  facts  have  received  no  particular  expla¬ 
nations,  and  might  indeed  be  taken  as  ultimate  facts  or  highest 
laws  in  themselves,  were  it  not  that  in  biological  speculations 
such  an  assumption  would  be  likely  to  be  misunderstood,  as 
denying  the  existence  of  any  real  determining  causes  and  more 
ultimate  laws,  as  well  as  denying  any  known  antecedents  or 
regularities  in  such  phenomena.  No  physical  naturalist  would 
for  a  moment  be  liable  to  such  a  misunderstanding,  but  would, 
on  the  contrary,  be  more  likely  to  be  off  his  guard  against  the 
possibility  of  it  in  minds  otherwise  trained  and  habituated  to  a 
different  kind  of  studies.  Mr.  Darwin  has  undoubtedly  erred 
in  this  respect.  He  has  not  in  his  works  repeated  with  suffi¬ 
cient  frequency  his  faith  in  the  universality  of  the  law  of 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES . 


131 

causation,  in  the  phenomena  of  general  physiology  Or  theoret¬ 
ical  biology,  as  well  as  in  all  the  rest  of  physical  nature.  He 
has  not  said  often  enough,  it  would  appear,  that  in  referring 
any  effect  to  “accident,”  he  only  means  that  its  causes  are  like 
particular  phases  of  the  weather,  or  like  innumerable  phenom¬ 
ena  in  the  concrete  course  of  nature  generally,  which  are  quite 
beyond  the  power  of  finite  minds  to  anticipate  or  to  account 
for  in  detail,  though  none  the  less  really  determinate  or  due  to 
regular  causes.  That  he  has  committed  this  error  appears 
from  the  fact  that  his  critic,  Mr.  Mivart,  has  made  the  mis¬ 
take,  which  nullifies  nearly  the  whole  of  his  criticism,  of  sup¬ 
posing  that  “the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  may  (though  it 
need  not)  be  taken  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  men  to  regard 
the  present  organic  world  as  formed,  so  to  speak,  accidentally , 
beautiful  and  wonderful  as  is  confessedly  the  hap-hazard  re¬ 
sult”  (p.  33).  Mr.  Mivart,  like  many  another  writer,  seems  to 
forget  the  age  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives  and  for  which  he 
writes,- — the  age  of  “experimental  philosophy,”  the  very  stand¬ 
point  of  which,  its  fundamental  assumption,  is  the  universality 
of  physical  causation.  This  is  so  familiar  to  minds  bred  in 
physical  studies,  that  they  rarely  imagine  that  they  may  be 
mistaken  for  disciples  of  Democritus,  or  for  believers  in  “  the 
fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms,”  in  the  sense,  at  least,  which 
theoiogy  has  attached  to  this  phrase.  If  they  assent  to  the 
truth  that  may  have  been  meant  by  the  phrase,  they  would  not 
for  a  moment  suppose  that  the  atoms  move  fortuitously,  but 
only  that  their  conjunctions,  constituting  the  actual  concrete 
orders  of  events,  could  not  be  anticipated  except  by  a  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  natures  and  regular  histories  of  each  and  all  of 
them, — such  knowledge  as  belongs  only  to  omniscience.  The 
very  hope  of  experimental  philosophy,  its  expectation  of  con¬ 
structing  the  sciences  into  a  true  philosophy  of  nature,  is  based 
on  the  induction,  or,  if  you  please,  the  a  priori  presumption, 
that  physical  causation  is  universal;  that  the  constitution  of 
nature  is  written  in  its  actual  manifestations,  and  needs  only  to 
be  deciphered  by  experimental  and  inductive  research;  that  it 
is  not  a  latent  invisible  writing,  to  be  brought  out  by  the  magic 
of  mental  anticipation  or  metaphysical  meditation.  Or,  as 


132 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


Bxcon  said,  it  is  not  by  the  “anticipations  of  the  mind,”  but 
by  the  “interpretation  of  nature,”  that  natural  philosophy  is 
to  be  constituted;  and  this  is  to  presume  that  the  order  of  na¬ 
ture  is  decipherable,  or  that  causation  is  everywhere  either 
manifest  or  hidden,  but  never  absent. 

Mr.  Mivart  does  not  wholly  reject  the  process  of  Natural 
Selection,  or  disallow  it  as  a  real  cause  in  nature,  but  he  re¬ 
duces  it  to  “a  subordinate  role”  in  his  view  of  the  derivation 
of  species.  It  serves  to  perfect  the  imperfect  adaptations,  and 
to  meet  within  certain  limits  unfavorable  changes  in  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  existence.  The  “accidents”  which  Natural  Selection 
acts  upon  are  allowed  to  serve  in  a  subordinate  capacity  and 
in  subjection  to  a  foreordained,  particular,  divine  order,  or  to 
act  like  other  agencies  dependent  on  an  evil  principle,  which 
are  compelled  to  turn  evil  into  good.  Indeed,  the  only  differ¬ 
ence  on  purely  scientific  grounds,  and  irrespective  of  theological 
considerations,  between  Mr.  Mivart’s  views  and  Mr.  Darwin’s 
is  in  regard  to  the  extent  to  which  the  process  of  Natural  Selec¬ 
tion  has  been  effective  in  the  modifications  of  species.  Mr. 
Darwin  himself,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  process,  has  never 
supposed  for  it,  as  a  cause,  any  other  than  a  co-ordinate  place 
among  other  causes  of  change,  though  he  attributes  to  it  a  su¬ 
perintendent,  directive,  and  controlling  agency  among  them. 
The  student  of  the  theory  would  gather  quite  a  different  im¬ 
pression  of  the  theory  from  Mr.  Mivart’s  account  of  it,  which 
attributes  to  “  Darwinians  ”  the  absurd  conception  of  this  cause 
as  acting  “alone”  to  produce  the  changes  and  stabilities  of 
species;  whereas,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  process,  other 
causes  of  change,  whether  of  a  known  or  as  yet  unknown  nat¬ 
ure,  are  presupposed  by  it.  Even  Mr.  Galton’s  hypothet¬ 
ical  “  facets,”  or  internal  conditions  of  abrupt  changes  and 
successions  of  stable  equilibriums,  might  be  among  these 
causes,  if  there  were  any  good  inductive  grounds  for  sup¬ 
posing  their  existence.  Reversional  and  correlated  variations 
are,  indeed,  due  to  such  internal  conditions  and  to  laws 
of  inheritance,  which  have  been  ascertained  inductively  as  at 
least  laws  of  phenomena,  but  of  which  the  causes,  or  the  ante¬ 
cedent  conditions  in  the  organism,  are  unknown.  Mr  Dar- 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


133 


win  continually  refers  to  variations  as  arising  from  unknown 
causes,  but  these  are  always  such,  so  far  as  observation  can 
determine  their  relations  to  the  organism’s  conditions  of  exist¬ 
ence,  that  they  are  far  from  accounting  for,  or  bearing  any  re¬ 
lations  to,  the  adaptive  characters  of  the  organism.  It  is 
solely  upon  and  with  reference  to  such  adaptive  characters  that 
the  process  of  Natural  Selection  has  any  agency,  or  could  be 
supposed  to  be  effective.  If  Mr.  Mivart  had  cited  anywhere 
in  his  book,  as  he  has  not,  even  a  single  instance  of  sudden 
variation  in  a  whole  race,  either  in  a  state  of  nature  or  under 
domestication,  which  is  not  referable  by  known  physiological 
laws  to  the  past  history  of  the  race  on  the  theory  of  evolution, 
and  had  further  shown  that  such  a  variation  was  an  adaptive 
one,  he  might  have  weakened  the  arguments  for  the  agency 
and  extent  of  the  process  of  Natural  Selection.  As  it  is,  he  has 
left  them  quite  intact. 

The  only  direct  proofs  which  he  adduces  for  his  theory  that 
adaptive  as  well  as  other  combinations  proceed  from  innate 
predeterminations  wholly  within  the  organism,  are  drawn  from, 
or  rather  assumed  in,  a  supposed  analogy  of  the  specific  forms 
in  organisms  to  those  of  crystals.  As  under  different  circum¬ 
stances  or  in  different  media  the  same  chemical  substances  or 
constituent  substances  assume  different  and  distinct  crystalline 
forms,  so,  he  supposes,  organisms  are  distinct  manifestations 
of  typical  forms,  one  after  another  of  which  will  appear  under 
various  external  conditions.  He  quotes  from  Mr.  J.  J.  Mur¬ 
phy’s  “Habit  and  Intelligence,”  that,  “it  needs  no  proof  that 
in  the  case  of  spheres  and  crystals,  the  forms  and  structures  are 
the  effect  and  not  the  cause  of  the  formative  principle.  At¬ 
traction,  whether  gravitative  or  capillary,  produces  the  spher¬ 
ical  form ;  the  spherical  form  does  not  produce  attraction.  And 
crystalline  polarities  produce  crystalline  structure  and  form ; 
crystalline  structure  and  form  do  not  produce  polarities.” 
And,  by  analogy,  Mr.  Murphy  and  our  author  infer  that  innate 
vital  forces  always  produce  specific  vital  forms,  and  that  the 
vital  forms  themselves,  or  “  accidental  ”  variations  of  them, 
cannot  modify  the  types  of  action  in  vital  force.  Now,  al¬ 
though  Mr.  Murphy’s  propositions  may  need  no  proof,  they 


*34 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


will  bear  correction ;  and,  clear  as  they  appear  to  be,  a  better 
interpretation  of  the  physical  facts  is  needed  for  the  purposes 
of  tracing  out  analogy  and  avoiding  paralogism.  Strange  as  it 
may  seem,  Mr.  Murphy’s  clear  antitheses  are  not  even  partially 
true.  No  abstraction  ever  produced  any  other  abstraction, 
much  less  a  concrete  thing.  The  abstract  laws  of  attraction 
never  produced  any  body,  spherical  or  polyhedral.  It  was 
actual  forces  acting  in  definite  ways  that  made  the  sphere  or 
crystal ;  and  the  sizes,  particular  shapes,  and  positions  of  these 
bodies  determined  in  part  the  action  of  these  actual  forces.  It 
is  the  resultants  of  many  actual  attractions,  dependent  in  turn 
on  the  actual  products,  that  determine  the  spherical  or  crystal¬ 
line  forms.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  crystals,  neither  these 
forces  nor  the  abstract  law  of  their  action  in  producing  definite 
angles  reside  in  the  finished  bodies,  but  in  the  properties  of 
the  surrounding  media,  portions  of  whose  constituents  are 
changed  into  crystals,  according  to  these  properties  and  to 
other  conditioning  circumstances.  So  far  as  these  bodies  have 
any  innate  principle  in  them  concerned  in  their  own  produc¬ 
tion,  it  is  manifested  in  determining,  not  their  general  agree¬ 
ments,  but  their  particular  differences  in  sizes,  shapes,  and 
positions.  The  particular  position  of  a  crystal  that  grows  from 
some  fixed  base  or  nucleus,  and  the  particular  directions  of  its 
faces,  may,  perhaps,  be  said  to  be  innate ;  that  is,  they  were 
determined  at  the  beginning-of  the  particular  crystal’s  growth. 

Finding,  therefore,  what  Mr.  Murphy  and  Mr.  Mivart  suppose 
to  be  innate  to  be  really  in  the  outward  conditions  of  the  crys¬ 
tal’s  growth,  and  what  they  would  suppose  to  be  superinduced 
to  be  all  that  is  innate  in  it,  we  have  really  found  the  contrast 
in  place  of  an  analogy  between  a  crystal  and  an  organism. 
For,  in  organisms,  no  doubt,  and  as  we  may  be  readily  con¬ 
vinced  without  resort  to  analogy,  there  is  a  great  deal  that  is 
really  innate,  or  dependent  on  actions  in  the  organism,  which 
diversities  of  external  conditions  modify  very  little,  or  affect  at 
least  in  a  very  indeterminate  manner,  so  far  as  observation  has 
yet  ascertained.  External  conditions  are,  nevertheless,  essen¬ 
tial  factors  in  development,  as  well  as  in  mere  increase  or 
growth.  No  animal  or  plant  is  developed,  nor  do  its  develop- 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


*35 


ments  acquire  any  growth  without  very  special  external  condi¬ 
tions.  These  are  quite  as  essential  to  the  production  of  an 
organism  as  a  crystalline  nucleus  and  fluid  material  are  to  the 
growth  and  particular  form  of  a  crystal ;  and  as  the  general 
resemblances  of  the  crystals  of  any  species,  the  agreements  in 
their  angles,  are  results  of  the  physical  properties  of  their  food 
and  other  surrounding  conditions  of  their  growth,  so  the  gen¬ 
eral  resemblances  of  animals  or  plants  of  any  species,  their 
agreements  in  specific  characters,  are  doubtless  due,  in  the 
main,  to  the  properties  of  what  is  innate  in  them,  yet  not  to 
any  abstraction.  This  is  sufficiently  conspicuous  to  “need 
no  proof,”  and  is  denied  by  no  Darwinian.  The  analogy  is 
so  close  indeed  between  the  internal  determinations  of  growth  in 
an  organism  and  the  external  ones  of  crystals,  that  Mr.  Darwin 
was  led  by  it  to  invent  his  “provisional  hypothesis  of  Pangen¬ 
esis,”  or  theory  of  gemmular  reproduction.  The  gemmules  in 
this  theory  being  the  perfect  analogues  of  the  hypothetical 
atoms  of  the  chemical  substances  that  are  supposed  to  arrange 
themselves  in  crystalline  forms,  the  theory  rather  gives  prob¬ 
ability  to  the  chemical  theory  of  atoms  than  borrows  any  from 
it.  But  we  shall  recur  to  this  theory  of  Pangenesis  further  on. 

General  physiology,  or  physical  and  theoretical  biology,  are 
sciences  in  which,  through  the  study  of  the  laws  of  inheritance, 
and  the  direct  and  indirect  effect  of  external  conditions,  we 
must  arrive,  if  in  any  way,  at  a  more  and  more  definite  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  causes  of  specific  manifestations ;  and  this  is  the  end 
to  which  Mr.  Darwin’s  labors  have  been  directed,  and  have  par¬ 
tially  accomplished.  Every  step  he  has  taken  has  been  in  strict 
conformity  to  the  principles  of  method  which  the  examples  of 
inductive  and  experimental  science  have  established.  A  stricter 
observance  of  these  by  Mr.  Murphy  and  our  author  might  have 
saved  them  from  the  mistake  we  have  noticed,  and  from  many 
others, — the  “realism”  of  ascribing  efficacy  to  an  abstraction, 
making  attraction  and  polarity  produce  structures  and  forms 
independently  of  the  products  and  of  the  concrete  matters  and 
forces  in  them.  A  similar  “realism”  vitiates  nearly  all  specu¬ 
lations  in  theoretical  biology,  which  are  not  designedly,  or  even 
instinctively,  as  in  Mr.  Darwin’s  work,  made  to  conform  to  the 


1 36 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


rigorous  rules  of  experimental  philosophy.  These  require  us 
to  assume  no  causes  that  are  not  true  or  phenomenally  known, 
and  known  in  some  other  way  than  in  the  effect  to  be  explained ; 
and  to  prove  the  sufficiency  of  those  we  do  assume  in  some 
other  way  than  by  putting  an  abstract  name  or  description  of 
an  effect  for  its  cause,  like  using  the  words  “  attraction  ”  and 
“polarity”  to  account  for  things  the  matters  of  which  have 
come  together  in  a  definite  form.  It  may  seem  strange  to  many 
readers  to  be  told  that  Mr.  Darwin,  the  most  consummate 
speculative  genius  of  our  times,  is  no  more  a  maker  of  hypoth¬ 
eses  than  Newton  was,  who,  unable  to  discover  the  cause  of 
the  properties  of  gravitation,  wrote  the  often-quoted  but  much 
misunderstood  words,  “ Hypotheses  non  fingo.”  “For,”  he 
adds,  “  whatever  is  not  deduced  from  the  phenomena  is  to  be 
called  an  hypothesis;  and  hypotheses,  whether  metaphysical 
or  physical,  whether  of  occult  qualities  or  mechanical,  have  no 
place  in  experimental  philosophy.  In  this  philosophy  particular 
propositions  are  inferred  from  the  phenomena,  and  afterwards 
rendered  general  by  induction.  Thus  it  was  that  the  impen¬ 
etrability,  the  mobility,  and  the  impulsive  force  of  bodies,  and 
the  laws  of  motion  and  gravitation,  were  discovered.  And  to 
us  it  is  enough  that  gravity  does  really  exist  and  act  according 
to  the  laws  which  we  have  explained,  and  abundantly  serves  to 
account  for  all  the  motions  of  the  celestial  bodies  and  of  our 
sea.”  Thus,  also,  it  is  that  the  variability  of  organisms  and 
the  known  laws  of  variation  and  inheritance,  and  of  the  influ¬ 
ences  of  external  conditions,  and  the  law  of  Natural  Selection, 
have  been  discovered.  And  though  it  is  not  enough  that  vari¬ 
ability  and  selection  do  really  exist  and  act  according  to  laws 
which  Mr.  Darwin  has  explained  (since  the  limits  of  their  action 
and  efficiency  are  still  to  be  ascertained),  yet  it  is  enough  for 
the  present  that  Darwinians  do  not  rest,  like  their  opponents, 
contented  with  framing  what  Newton  would  have  called,  if  he 
had  lived  after  Kant,  “  transcendental  hypotheses ,”  which  have 
no  place  in  experimental  philosophy.  It  may  be  said  that  Mr. 
Darwin  has  invented  the  hypothesis  of  Pangenesis,  against  the 
rules  of  this  philosophy;  but  so  also  did  Newton  invent  the 
corpuscular  theory  of  light,  with  a  similar  purpose  and  utility.. 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


*37 


In  determining  the  limits  of  the  action  of  Natural  Selection, 
and  its  sufficiency  within  these  limits,  the  same  demonstrative 
adequacy  should  not,  for  obvious  reasons,  be  demanded  as  con¬ 
ditions  of  assenting  to  its  highly  probable  truth,  that  Newton 
proved  for  his  speculation.  For  the  facts  for  this  investigation 
are  hopelessly  wanting.  Astronomy  presents  the  anomaly, 
among  the  physical  sciences,  of  being  the  only  science  that 
deals  in  the  concrete  with  a  few  naturally  isolated  causes, 
which  are  separated  from  all  other  lines  of  causation  in  a  way 
that  in  other  physical  sciences  can  only  be  imitated  in  the  care¬ 
fully  guarded  experiments  of  physical  and  chemical  laboratories. 
The  study  of  animals  and  plants  under  domestication  is,  in¬ 
deed,  a  similar  mode  of  isolating  with  a  view  to  ascertaining 
the  physical  laws  of  life  by  inductive  investigations.  But  the 
theory  of  Natural  Selection,  in  its  actual  application  to  the 
phenomena  of  life  and  the  origin  of  species,  should  not  be 
compared  to  the  theory  of  gravitation  in  astronomy,  nor  to  the 
principles  of  physical  science  as  they  appear  in  the  natures 
that  are  shut  in  by  the  experimental  resources  of  the  labora¬ 
tory,  but  rather  to  these  principles  as  they  are  actually  work¬ 
ing,  and  have  been  working,  in  the  concrete  courses  of 
outward  nature,  in  meteorology  and  physical  geology.  Still 
better,  perhaps,  at  least  for  the  purposes  of  illustration,  we  may 
compare  the  principle  of  Natural  Selection  to  the  fundamental 
laws  of  political  economy,  demonstrated  and  actually  at  work 
in  the  production  of  the  values  and  the  prices  in  the  market 
of  the  wealth  which  human  needs  and  efforts  demand  and 
supply.  Who  can  tell  from  these  principles  what  the  market 
will  be  next  week,  or  account  for  its  prices  of  last  week,  even 
by  the  most  ingenious  use  of  hypotheses  to  supply  the  missing 
evidence  ?  The  empirical  economist  and  statistician  imagines 
that  he  can  discover  some  other  principles  at  work,  some  pre¬ 
determined  regularity  in  the  market,  some  “innate”  principles 
in  it,  to  which  the  general  laws  of  political  economy  are  subor¬ 
dinated  ;  and  speculating  on  them,  might  risk  his  own  wealth 
in  trade,  as  the  speculative  “vitalist”  might,  if  anything  could 
be  staked  on  a  transcendental  hypothesis.  In  the  same  way 
the  empirical  weather-philosopher  thinks  he  can  discern  regu- 


A 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


138 

larities  in  the  weather,  which  the  known  principles  of  mechan¬ 
ical  and  chemical  physics  will  not  account  for,  and  to  which 
they  are  subordinate.  This  arises  chiefly  from  his  want  of 
imagination,  of  a  clear  mental  grtisp  of  these  principles,  and 
of  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  resources  of  legitimate 
hypothesis  to  supply  the  place  of  the  unknown  incidental 
causes  through  which  these  principles  act.  Such  are  also  the 
sources  of  most  of  the  difficulties  which  Mr.  Mivart  has  found 
in  the  application  of  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection. 

His  work  is  chiefly  taken  up  with  these  difficulties.  He  does 
not  so  much  insist  on  the  probability  of  his  own  transcendental 
hypothesis,  as  endeavor  to  make  way  for  it  by  discrediting 
the  sufficiency  of  its  rival;  as  if  this  could  serve  his  purpose; 
as  if  experimental  philosophy  itself,  without  aid  from  “  Darwin¬ 
ism,”  'would  not  reject  his  metaphysical,  occult,  transcendental 
hypothesis  of  a  specially  predetermined  and  absolute  fixity  of 
species,  —  an  hypothesis  which  multiplies  species  in  an  organ¬ 
ism  to  meet  emergencies,  —  the  emergencies  of  theory,  —  much 
as  the  epicycles  of  Ptolemy  had  to  be  multiplied  in  the  heav¬ 
ens.  Ptolemy  himself  had  the  sagacity  to  believe  that  his  was 
only  a  mathematical  theory,  a  mode  of  representation,  not  a 
theory  of  causation;  and  to  prize  it  only  as  representative  of 
the  facts  of  observation,  or  as  “saving  the  appearances.”  Mr. 
Mivart’s  theory,  on  the  other  hand,  is  put  forward  as  a  theory 
of  causation,  not  to  save  appearances,  but  to  justify  the  hasty 
conclusion  that  they  are  real;  the  appearances,  namely,  of 
complete  temporary  fixity,  alternating  with  abrupt  changes,  in 
the  forms  of  life  which  are  exhibited  by  the  scanty  records  of 
geology  and  in  present  apparently  unchanging  natural  species. 

Before  proceeding  to  a  special  consideration  of  Mr.  Mivart’s 
difficulties  on  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection,  we  will  quote 
from  Mr.  Darwin’s  latest  work,  “The  Descent  of  Man,”  his 
latest  views  of  the  extent  of  the  action  of  this  principle  and 
its  relations  to  the  general  theory  of  evolution.  He  says 
(Chapter  IV): 

“  Thus  a  very  large  yet  undefined  extension  may  safely  be  given  to  the 
direct  and  indirect  results  of  Natural  Selection;  but  I  now  admit,  after 
reading  the  essay  by  Nageli  on  plants,  and  the  remarks  by  various  authors 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


I39 


with  respect  to  animals,  more  especially  those  recently  made  by  Professor 
Broca,  that  in  the  earlier  editions  of  my  ‘Origin  of  Species’  I  probably 
attributed  too  much  to  the  action  of  Natural  Selection,  or  the  survival  of 
the  fittest.  I  have  altered  the  fifth  edition  of  the  ‘Origin’  [the  edition 
which  Mr.  Mivart  reviews  in  his  work]  so  as  to  confine  my  remarks  to 
adaptive  changes  of  structure.  I  had  not  formerly  sufficiently  considered 
the  existence  of  many  structures  which  appear  to  be,  as  far  as  we  can 
judge,  neither  beneficial  nor  injurious;  and  this  I  believe  to  be  one  of  the' 
greatest  oversights  as  yet  detected  in  my  work.  I  may  be  permitted  to  * 
say,  as  some  excuse,  that  I  had  two  distinct  objects  in  view:  firstly,  to 
show  that  species  had  not  been  separately  created;  and  secondly,  that 
Natural  Selection  had  been  the  chief  agent  of  change,  though  largely 
aided  by  the  inherited  effects  of  habit,  and  slightly  by  the  direct  action  of 
the  surrounding  conditions.  Nevertheless,  I  was  not  able  to  annul  the 
influence  of  my  former  belief,  then  widely  prevalent,  that  each  species 
had  been  purposely  created;  and  this  led  to  my  tacitly  assuming  that 
every  detail  of  structure,  excepting  rudiments,  was  of  some  special, 
though  unrecognized,  service.  Any  one  with  this  assumption  in  his  mind 
would  naturally  extend  the  action  of  Natural  Selection,  either  during  past 
or  present  times,  too  far.  Some  of  those  who  admit  the  principle  of 
evolution,  but  reject  Natural  Selection,  seem  to  forget,  when  criticising 
my  work,  that  I  had  the  above  two  objects  in  view ;  hence,  if  I  have 
erred  in  giving  to  Natural  Selection  great  power,  which  I  am  far  from 
admitting,  or  in  having  exaggerated  its  power,  which  is  in  itself  probable, 

I  have  at  least,  as  I  hope,  done  good  service  in  aiding  to  overthrow  the 
dogma  of  separate  creations.” 

In  one  other  respect  Mr.  Darwin  has  modified  his  views  of 
the  action  of  Natural  Selection,  in  consequence  of  a  valuable 
criticism  in  the  North  British  Review  of  June,  1867;  and  Mr. 
Mivart  regards  this  modification  as  very  important,  and  says 
of  it  that  “this  admission  seems  almost  to  amount  to  a  change 
of  front  in  the  face  of  the  enemy.”  It  is  not,  as  we  shall  see, 
an  important  modification  at  all,  and  does  not  change  in  any 
essential  particular  the  theory  as  propounded  in  the  first  edi¬ 
tion  of  the  “  Origin  of  Species,”  but  Mr.  Mivart’s  opinion  of  it 
has  helped  us  to  discover  what,  without  this  confirmation, 
seemed  almost  incredible, — how  completely  he  has  misappre¬ 
hended,  not  merely  the  use  of  the  theory  in  special  applica¬ 
tions,  which  is  easily  excusable,  but  also  the  nature  of  its  gen¬ 
eral  operation  and  of  the  causes  employed  by  it;  thus  furnishing 
an  additional  illustration  of  what  he  says  in  his  Introduction, 
that  “  few  things  are  more  remarkable  than  the  way  in  which 


140 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


it  [this  theory]  has  been  misunderstood.”  One  other  consid¬ 
eration  has  also  been  of  aid  to  us.  In  his  concluding  chaptei 
on  “Theology  and  Evolution,”  in  which  he  very  ably  shows, 
and  on  the  most  venerable  authority,  that  there  is  no  necessary 
conflict  between  the  strictest  orthodoxy  and  the  theory  of  evo¬ 
lution,  he  remarks  (and  quotes  Dr.  Newman)  on  thenarrowing 
effect  of  single  lines  of  study.  Not  only  inabilities  may  be 
produced  by  a  one-sided  pursuit,  but  “a  positive  distaste  may 
grow  up,  which,  in  the  intellectual  order,  may  amount  to  a 
spontaneous  and  unreasoning  disbelief  in  that  which  appears  to 
be  in  opposition  to  the  more  familiar  concept,  and  this  at  all 
times.”  This  is,  of  course,  meant  to  apply  to  those  who, 
from  want  of  knowledge,  lack  interest  in  and  even  acquire 
a  distaste  for  theological  studies.  But  it  also  has  other  and 
equally  important  applications.  Mr.  Mivart,  it  would  at  first 
sight  seem,  being  distinguished  as  a  naturalist  and  also  versed 
in  theology,  is  not  trammeled  by  any  such  narrowness  as 
to  disable  him  from  giving  just  weight  to  both  sides  of  the 
question  he  discusses.  But  what  are  the  two  sides  ?  Are 
they  the  view  of  the  theologian  and  the  naturalist?  Not  at 
all.  The  debate  is  between  the  theologian  and  descriptive 
naturalist  on  one  side,  or  the  theologian  and  the  student  of 
natural  history  in  its  narrowest  sense,  that  is,  systematic  biol- 
ogy;  and  on  the  other  side  the  physical  naturalist,  physiolo¬ 
gist,  or  theoretical  biologist.  Natural  history  and  biology,  or 
the  general  science  of  life,  are  very  comprehensive  terms,  and 
comprise  in  their  scope  widely  different  lines  of  pursuit  and  a 
wide  range  of  abilities.  In  fact,  the  sciences  of  biology  contain 
contrasts  in  the  objects,  abilities,  and  interests  of  scientific 
pursuit  almost  as  wide  as  that  presented  by  the  physical  sci¬ 
ences  generally,  and  the  sciences  of  direct  observation,  descrip¬ 
tion,  and  classification.  The  same  contrast  holds,  indeed,  even 
in  a  science  so  limited  in  its  material  objects  as  astronomy. 
The  genius  of  the  practical  astronomer  and  observer  is  very 
different  from  that  of  the  physical  astronomer  and  mathema¬ 
tician;  though  success  in  this  science  generally  requires  now¬ 
adays  that  some  degree  of  both  should  be  combined.  So  the 
genius  of  the  physiologist  is  different  from  that  of  the  naturalist 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


I4I 


proper,  though  in  the  study  of  comparative  anatomy  die  ob¬ 
server  has  to  exercise  some  of  the  skill  in  analysis  and  in  the 
use  of  hypotheses  in  which  the  student  of  the  physical  sciences 
displays  his  genius  in  the  search  for  unknown  causes.  We  may, 
perhaps,  comprise  all  the  forms  of  intellectual  genius  (exclud¬ 
ing*  aesthetics)  under  three  chief  classes,  namely,  first,  the  genius 
that  pursues  successfully  the  researches  for  unknown  causes  by 
the  skillful  use  of  hypothesis  and  experiment;  secondly,  that 
which,  avoiding  the  use  of  hypotheses  or  preconceptions  alto¬ 
gether  and  the  delusive  influence  of  names,  brings  together 
in  clear  connections  and  contrasts  in  classification  the  objects 
of  nature  in  their  broadest  and  most  real  relations  of  resem¬ 
blance;  and  thirdly,  that  genius  which  seeks  with  success  for 
reasons  and  authorities  in  support  of  cherished  convictions. 

That  Mr.  Mivart  may  have  the  last  two  forms  of  genius,  even 
in  a  notable  degree,  we  readily  admit;  but  that  he  has  not  the 
first  to  the  degree  needed  for  an  inquiry,  which  is  essentially  a 
branch  of  physical  science,  we  propose  to  show.  We  have 
already  pointed  out  how  his  theological  education,  his  school¬ 
ing  against  Democritus,  has  misled  him  in  regard  to  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  “accidents”  or  accidental  causes  in  physical  science; 
as  if  to  the  physical  philosopher  these  could  possibly  be  an 
absolute  and  distinct  class,  not  included  under  the  law  of  cau¬ 
sation,  “that  every  event  must  have  a  cause  or  determinate 
antecedents,”  whether  we  can  trace  them  out  or  not.  The 
accidental  causes  of  science  are  only  “accidents”  relatively  to 
the  intelligence  of  a  man.  Eclipses  have  the  least  of  this 
character  to  the  astronomer  of  all  the  phenomena  of  nature; 
yet  to  the  savage  they  are  the  most  terrible  of  monstrous  acci¬ 
dents.  The  accidents  of  monstrous  variation,  or  even  of  the 
small  and  limited  variations  normal  in  any  race  or  species,  are 
only  accidents  relatively  to  the  intelligence  of  the  naturalist,  or 
to  his  knowledge  of  general  physiology.  An  accident  is  what 
cannot  be  anticipated  from  what  we  know,  or  by  any  intelli¬ 
gence,  perhaps,  which  is  less  than  omniscient. 

But  this  is  not  the  most  serious  misconception  of  the  acci¬ 
dental  causes  of  science,  which  Mr.  Mivart  has  fallen  into.  He 
utterly  mistakes  the  particular  class  of  accidents  concerned  in 


142 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


the  process  of  Natural  Selection.  To  make  this  clear,  we  will 
enumerate  the  classes  of  causes  which  are  involved  in  this  proc¬ 
ess.  In  the  first  place,  there  are  the  external  conditions  of 
an  animal’s  or  plant’s  life,  comprising  chiefly  its  relations  to 
other  organic  beings,  but  partly  its  relations  to  inorganic  na¬ 
ture,  and  determining  its  needs  and  some  of  the  means  of 
satisfying  them.  These  conditions  are  consequences  of  the 
external  courses  of  events  or  of  the  partial  histories  of  organic 
and  inorganic  nature.  In  the  second  place,  there  are  the 
general  principles  of  the  fitness  of  means  to  ends,  or  of  sup¬ 
plies  to  needs.  These  comprise  the  best  ascertained  and  most 
fundamental  of  all  the  principles  of  science,  such  as  the  laws 
of  mechanical,  optical,  and  acoustical  science,  by  which  we 
know  how  a  leg,  arm,  or  wing,  a  bony  frame,  a  muscular  or  a 
vascular  system,  an  eye  or  an  ear,  can  be  of  use.  In  the  third 
place,  there  are  the  causes  introduced  by  Mr.  Darwin  to  the 
attention  of  physiologists,  as  normal  facts  of  organic  nature, 
the  little  known  phenomena  of  variation,  and  their  relations  to 
the  laws  of  inheritance.  There  are  several  classes  of  these. 
The  most  important  in  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  are  the 
diversities  always  existing  in  any  race  of  animals  or  plants, 
called  “individual  differences,”  which  always  determine  a  bet¬ 
ter  fitness  of  some  individuals  to  the  general  conditions  of  the 
existence  of  a  race  than  other  less  fortunate  individuals  possess. 
The  more  than  specific  agreements  in  characters,  which  the 
best  fitted  individuals  of  a  race  must  thus  exhibit,  ought,  if 
possible,  according  to  Cuvier’s  principles  of  zoology,  to  be 
included  in  the  description  of  a  species  (as  a  norm  or  type 
which  only  the  best  exhibit),  instead  of  the  rough  averages  to 
which  the  naturalist  really  resorts  in  defining  species  by  marks 
or  characters  that  are  variable.  But  probably  such  averages 
in  variable  characters  are  really  close  approximations  to  the 
characters  of  the  best  general  adaptation ;  for  variation  being, 
so  far  as  known,  irrespective  of  adaptation,  is  as  likely  to  exist 
to  the  same  extent  on  one  side  of  the  norm  of  utility  as  on  the 
other,  or  by  excess  as  generally  as  by  defect.  Though  varia¬ 
tion  is  irrespective  of  utility,  its  limits  are  not.  Too  great  a 
departure  from  the  norm  of  utility  must  put  an  end  to  life  and 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


H3 


its  successions.  Utility  therefore,  in  conjunction  with  the  laws 
of  inheritance,  determines  not  only  the  middle  line  or  safest 
way  of  a  race,  but  also  the  bounding  limits  of  its  path  of  life ; 
and  so  long  as  the  conditions  and  principles  of  utility  embodied 
in  a  form  of  life  remain  unchanged,  they  will,  together  with  the 
laws  of  inheritance,  maintain  a  race  unchanged  in  its  average 
characters. 

“Specific  stability,”  therefore,  for  which  theological  and 
descriptive  naturalists  have  speculated  a  transcendental  cause, 
is  even  more  readily  and  directly  accounted  for  by  the 
causes  which  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  regards  than  is 
specific  change.  But  just  as  obviously  it  follows  from  these 
causes  that  a  change  in  the  conditions  and  resources  of  utility, 
not  only  may  but  must  change  the  normal  characters  of  a 
species,  or  else  the  race  must  perish.  Again,  a  slow  and  grad¬ 
ual  change  in  the  conditions  of  existence  must,  on  these 
principles,  slowly  change  the  middle  line  or  safest  way  of  life 
(the  descriptive  or  graphic  line);  but  always,  of  course,  this 
change  must  be  within  the  existing  limits  of  variation,  or  the 
range  of  “individual  differences.”  A  change  in  these  limits 
would  then  follow,  or  the  range  of  “individual  differences” 
would  be  extended,  at  least,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  change.  That  it  is  widened  or  extended  to  a. greater 
range  by  rapid  and  important  changes  in  conditions  of  exist¬ 
ence,  is  a  matter  of  observation  in  many  races  of  animals  and 
plants  that  have  been  long  subject  to  domestication  or  to  the 
capricious  conditions  imposed  by  human  choice  and  care.  This 
phenomenon  is  like  what  would  happen  if  a  roadway  or  path 
across  a  field  were  to  become  muddy  or  otherwise  obstructed. 
The  traveled  way  would  swerve  to  one  side,  or  be  broadened, 
or  abandoned,  according  to  the  nature  and  degree  of  the  ob¬ 
struction,  and  to  the  resources  of  travel  that  remained.  This 
class  of  variations,  that  is,  “  individual  differences,”  constant 
and  normal  in  a  race,  but  having  different  ranges  in  different 
races,  or  in  the  same  race  under  different  circumstances,  may 
be  regarded  as  in  no  proper  sense  accidentally  related  to  the 
advantages  that  come  from  them ;  or  in  no  other  sense  than  a 
tendril,  or  a  tentacle,  or  a  hand  searching  in  the  dark,  is  acci 


k 

I 


H4 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


dentally  related  to  the  object  it  succeeds  in  finding.  And  yet 
we  say  properly  that  it  was  by  “accident”  that  a  certain  ten¬ 
dril  was  put  forth  so  as  to  fulfill  its  function,  and  clasp  the  par¬ 
ticular  object  by  which  it  supports  the  vine;  or  that  it  was  an 
accidental  movement  of  the  tentacle  or  hand  that  brought  the 
object  it  has  secured  within  its  grasp.  The  search  was,  and 
continues  to  be,  normal  and  general ;  it  is  the  particular  suc¬ 
cess  only  that  is  accidental ;  and  this  only  in  the  sense  that 
lines  of  causation,  stretching  backwards  infinitely,  and  unre¬ 
lated  except  in  a  first  cause,  or  in  the  total  order  of  nature, 
come  together  and  by  their  concurrence  produce  it.  Yet  over 
even  this  concurrence  “  law  ”  still  presides,  to  the  effect  that  for 
every  such  concurrence  the  same  consequences  follow. 

But  Mr.  Mivart,  with  his  mind  filled  with  horror  of  “blind 
chance,”  and  of  “  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms,”  has  en¬ 
tirely  overlooked  the  class  of  accidental  variations,  on  which, 
even  in  the  earlier  editions  of  the  “  Origin  of  Species,”  the  theory 
of  Natural  Selection  is  based,  and  has  fixed  his  attention  exclu¬ 
sively  on  another  class,  namely,  abnormal  or  unusual  variations, 
which  Mr.  Darwin  at  first  supposed  might  also  be  of  service  in 
this  process.  The  error  of  his  critic  might,  perhaps,  be  re¬ 
garded  as  due  to  Mr.  Darwin’s  failure  to  distinguish  suffi¬ 
ciently  the  two  classes,  as  well  as  to  his  overlooking,  until 
it  was  pointed  out  in  the  article  in  the  “North  British 
Review,”  before  referred  to,  the  fact  that  the  latter  class 
could  be  of  no  service;  if  it  were  not  that  Mr.  Mivart’s 
work  is  a  review  of  the  last  edition  of  the  “Origin'of  Species” 
and  of  the  treatise  on  “Animals  and  Plants  under  Domesti¬ 
cation,”  in  both  of  which  Mr.  Darwin  has  emphatically  dis¬ 
tinguished  the  two  classes,  and  admitted  that  it  is  upon  the 
first  class  only  that  Natural  Selection  can  normally  depend  ; 
though  the  second  class  of  unusual  and  monstrous  variations 
may  give  rise,  by  highly  improbable  though  possible  accidents, 
to  changes  in  the  characters  of  whole  races.  Mr.  Mivart  char¬ 
acterizes  this  admission  by  the  words  we  have  quoted,  that  “it 
seems  almost  to  amount  to  a  change  of  front  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy”;  of  which  it  might  have  been  enough  to  say,  that  the 
strategy  of  science  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  rhetorical  dispu- 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


*45 


tation,  and  aims  at  cornering  facts,  not  antagonists  But  Mr. 
Mivart  profits  by  it  as  a  scholastic  triumph  over  he  “esy,  which 
he  insists  upon  celebrating,  rather  than  as  a  correction  of  his 
own  misconceptions  of  the  theory.  He  continues  throughout 
his  book  to  speak  of  the  variations  on  which  Natural  Selection 
depends  as  if  they  were  all  of  rare  occurrence,  like  abrupt  and 
monstrous  variations,  instead  of  being  always  present  in  a  race ; 
and  also  as  having  the  additional  disadvantage  of  being  “in¬ 
dividually  slight,”  “minute,”  “insensible,”  “infinitesimal,” 
“fortuitous,”  and  “indefinite.”  These  epithets  are  variously 
combined  in  different  passages,  but  his  favorite  compendious 
formula  is,  “minute,  fortuitous,  and  indefinite  variations.” 
When,  however,  he  comes  to  consider  the  enormous  time 
which  such  a  process  must  have  taken  to  produce  the  present 
forms  of  life,  he  brings  to  bear  all  his  forces,  and  says  (p.  154) : 
“It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  less  than  two  thousand  million 
years  would  be  required  for  the  totality  of  animal  development 
by  no  other  means  than  minute,  fortuitous,  occasional,  and  in¬ 
termitting  variations  in  all  conceivable  directions.”  This  ex¬ 
ceeds  very  much — by  some  two  hundred-fold — the  length  of 
time  Sir  William  Thomson  allows  for  the  continuance  of  life 
on  the  earth.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how,  with  such  uncertain 
“fortuitous,  occasional,  and  intermitting”  elements,  our  author 
could  have  succeeded  in  making  any  calculations  at  all.  On 
the  probability  of  the  correctness  of  Sir  William  Thomson’s 
physical  arguments  “the  author  of  this  book  cannot  presume 
to  advance  an  opinion;  but,”  he  adds  (p.  150),  “the  fact  that 
they  have  not  been  refuted  pleads  strongly  in  their  favor  when 
we  consider  how  much  they  tell  against  the  theory  of  Mr. 
Darwin.”  He  can,  it  appears,  judge  of  them  on  his  own  side. 

For  the  descriptive  epithets  which  Mr.  Mivart  applies  to  the 
variations  on  which  he  supposes  Natural  Selection  to  depend 
he  has  the  following  authority.  He  says  (p.  35) :  “  N  dw  it  is 
distinctly  enunciated  by  Mr.  Darwin  that  the  spontaneous  vari¬ 
ations  upon  which  his  theory  depends  are  individually  slight, 
minute,  and  insensible.  He  says  (Animals  and  Plants  under 
Domestication ,  Vol.  II,  p.  192):  ‘Slight  individual  differences, 
however,  suffice  for  the  work,  and  are  probably  the  sole  differ- 


7 


I 


146 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


ences  which  are  effective  in  the  production  of  new  species.’  ” 
After  what  we  have  said  as  to  the  real  nature  of  the  differences 
from  which  nature  selects,  it  might  be,  perhaps,  unnecessary 
to  explain  what  ought  at  least  to  have  been  known  to  a  natu¬ 
ralist,  that  by  “  individual  differences  ”  is  meant  the  differences 
between  the  individuals  of  a  race  of  animals  or  plants;  that 
the  slightness  of  them  is  only  relative  to  the  differences  between 
the  characters  of  species,  and  that  they  may  be  very  consider¬ 
able  in  themselves,  or  their  effects,  or  even  to  the  eye  of  the 
naturalist.  How  the  expression  “slight  individual  differences” 
could  have  got  translated  in  the  writer’s  mind  into  “individu¬ 
ally  slight,  minute,  and  insensible”  ones,  has  no  natural  expla¬ 
nation.  But  this  is  not  the  only  instance  of  such  an  unfathom¬ 
able  translation  in  Mr.  Mivart’s  treatment  of -the  theory  of 
Natural  Selection.  Two  others  occur  on  page  133.  In  the 
first  he  says  :  “  Mr.  Darwin  abundantly  demonstrates  the  vari¬ 
ability  of  dogs,  horses,  fowls,  and  pigeons,  but  he  none  the  less 
shows  the  very  small  extent  to  which  the  goose,  the  peacock, 
and  the  guinea-fowl  have  varied.  Mr.  Darwin  attempts  to 
explain  this  fact  as  regards  the  goose  by  the  animal  being 
valued  only  for  food  and  feathers,  and  from  no  pleasure  having 
been  felt  in  it  on  other  accounts.  He  adds,  however,  at  the 
end,  the  striking  remark,  which  concedes  the  whole  position, 
‘but  the  goose  seems  to  have  a  singularly  inflexible  organiza¬ 
tion .’  ”  The  translation  is  begun  in  the  author’s  italics,  and 
completed  a  few  pages  further  on  (p.  141),  where,  recurring 
to  this  subject,  he  says  :  ‘‘We  have  seen  that  Mr.  Darwin  him¬ 
self  implicitly  admits  the  principle  of  specific  stability  in  assert¬ 
ing  the  singular  inflexibility  of  the  organization  of  the  goose.” 
This  is  what  is  called  in  scholastic  logic,  Fallacia  a  dicto 
secundum  quid  ad  dictum  simpliciter.  The  obvious  meaning, 
both  from  the  contexts  and  the  evidence,  of  the  expression, 
“singularly  inflexible,”  is  that  the  goose  has  been  much  less 
changed  by  domestication  than  other  domestic  birds.  But  this 
relative  inflexibility  is  understood  by  Mr.  Mivart  as  an  admission 
of  an  absolute  one,  in  spite  of  the  evidence  that  geese  have  va¬ 
ried  from  the  wild  type,  and  have  individual  differences,  and 
even  differences  of  breeds,  which  are  sufficiently  conspicuous, 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


147 


even  tc  the  eye  of  a  goose.  The  next  instance  of  Mr.  Mivart’s 
translations  (p.  133)  is  still  more  remarkable.  He  continues: 
“  This  is  not  the  only  place  in  which  such  expressions  are 
used.  He  [Mr.  Darwin]  elsewhere  makes  use  of  phrases  which 
quite  harmonize  with  the  conception  of  a  normal  specific  con¬ 
stancy,  but  varying  greatly  and  suddenly  at  intervals.  Thus 
he  speaks  of  a  whole  organism  seeming  to  have  become  plastic 
and  tending  to  depart  from  the  parental  type  (‘  Origin  of  Spe¬ 
cies,’  5th  edit.,  1869,  p.  13).”  The  italics  are  Mr.  Mivart’s. 
The  passage  from  which  these  words  are  quoted  (though  they 
are  not  put  in  quotation-marks)  is  this :  “It  is  well  worth  while 
carefully  to  study  the  several  treatises  on  some  of  our  old  cul¬ 
tivated  plants,  as  on  the  hyacinth,  potato,  even  the  dahlia,  etc. ; 
and  it  is  really  surprising  to  note  the  endless  points  in  structure 
and  constitution  in  which  the  varieties  and  sub-varieties  differ 
slightly  from  each  other.  The  whole  organization  seems  to 
have  become  plastic,  and  tends  to  depart  in  a  slight  degree  from 
that  of  the  parental  type.”  The  words  that  we  have  italicized 
in  this  quotation  are  omitted  by  Mr.  Mivart,  though  essential  to 
the  point  on  which  he  cites  Mr.  Darwin’s  authority,  namely, 
as  to  the  organism  “varying  greatly  and  suddenly  at  intervals.” 
Logic  has  no  adequate  name  for  this  fallacy ;  but  there  is  an¬ 
other  in  Mr.  Mivart’s  understanding  of  the  passage  which  is 
very  familiar, — the  fallacy  of  ambiguous  terms.  Mr.  Darwin 
obviously  uses  the  word  “plastic”  in  its  secondary  signification 
as  the  name  of  that  which  is  “capable  of  being  moulded,  mod¬ 
eled,  or  fashioned  to  the  purpose,  as  clay.”  His  critic  quite 
as  obviously  understands  it  in  its  primary  signification  as 
the  name  of  anything  “having  the  power  to  give  form.”  But 
this  is  a  natural  enough  misunderstanding,  since  in  scholastic 
philosophy  the  primary  signification  of  “plastic”  is  the  prevail¬ 
ing  one. 

Such  being  Mr.  Mivart’s  misconceptions  of  the  principle  of 
Natural  Selection,  and  such  their  source,  it  would  be  useless  to 
follow  him  in  his  tests  of  it  by  hypothetical  illustrations  from 
the  history  of  animals;  but  we  are  bound  to  make  good  our 
assertion  that  his  difficulties  have  arisen,  not  only  from  his 
want  of  a  clear  mental  grasp  of  principles,  but  also  from 


148 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


an  inadequate  knowledge  of  the  resources  of  legitimate  hy¬ 
pothesis  to  supply  the  unknown  incidental  causes  through 
which  the  principle  has  acted.  These  deficiencies  of  knowledge 
and  imagination,  though  more  excusable,  are  not  less  conspic¬ 
uous  in  his  criticisms  than  the  defects  we  have  noticed.  He 
says  (p.  59):  “It  may  be  objected,  perhaps,  that  these  diffi¬ 
culties  are  difficulties  of  ignorance ;  that  we  cannot  explain 
them,  because  we  do  not  know  enough  of  the  animals.”  It 
is  not  surprising  that  he  adds:  “But  it  is  here  contended 
that  this  is  not  the  case;  it  is  not  that  we  merely  fail  to 
see  how  Natural  Selection  acted,  but  that  there  is  a  positive 
incompatibility  between  the  cause  assigned  and  the  results.” 
And  no  wonder  that  he  remarks  at  the  close  of  the  chapter 
(Chapter  II):  “That  minute,  fortuitous,  and  indefinite  varia¬ 
tions  could  have  brought  about  such  special  forms  and  mod¬ 
ifications  as  have  been  enumerated  in  this  chapter  seems  to 
Contradict,  not  imagination,  but  reason.” 

In  this  chapter  on  “  Incipient  Structures,”  two  facts  are  quite 
overlooked, — the  one,  which  is  so  conspicuous  in  the  principles 
of  comparative  anatomy,  how  few  the  fundamental  structures 
are,  which  have  been  turned  to  such  numerous  uses;  that  is, 
how  meagre  have  been  the  resources  of  Natural  Selection, 
so  far  as  it  has  depended  on  th§  occurrence  of  structures 
which  were  of  no  previous  use,  or  were  not  already  partially 
useful  in  directions  in  which  they  have  been  modified  by 
the  selection  and  inheritance  of  “individual  differences”; 
the  other,  how  important  to  Natural  Selection  have  been 
the  principles  of  indirect  utility  and  “correlated  acquisi¬ 
tion,”  dependent  as  they  are  on  ultimate  physical  laws. 
The  human  hand  is  still  useful  in  swimming,  and  the  fishes’ 
fins  could  even  be  used,  for  holding  or  clasping,  if  there  were 
occasion  for  it.  We  might  well  attribute  the  paucity  of  indif¬ 
ferent  types  of  structure  to  the  agency  of  the  rarest  accidents 
of  nature,  though  not  in  a  theological  sense.  Animals  and 
plants  are  no  longer  dependent  for  improvement  on  their 
occurrence,  and,  perhaps,  never  were  after  their  competition 
and  struggle  for  existence  had  fully  begun.  It  is  so  much  easier 
foi  them  to  turn  to  better  account  powers  that  they  already 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


149 


possess  in  small  degrees.  Previously  to  such  a  competition 
and  struggle,  when  the  whole  field  of  the  inorganic  condi¬ 
tions  of  life  was  open  to  simple  organisms,  they  were  doubtless 
much  more  variable  than  afterwards.  But  variability  would 
then  have  been,  as  it  is  now,  in  no  absolute  sense  accidental. 
On  the  contrary,  variation,  instead  of  comparative  stability  in 
species,  would  have  been  the  most  prominent  normal  feature 
of  life.  The  tentative  powers  of  life,  trying  all  things,  but  not 
holding  fast  to  that  which  is  good,  or  not  so  firmly  as  after¬ 
wards,  instead  of  its  hereditary  features,  would  have  been  its 
most  characteristic  manifestation.  Our  author’s  general  diffi¬ 
culty  in  this  chapter  is  as  to  how  variations  too  small  to  have 
been  of  use  could  have  been  preserved,  and  he  is  correct  in 
thinking  that  it  could  not  be  by  Natural  Selection,  or  the  sur¬ 
vival  of  the  fittest,  but  wrong  in  thinking  that  variations 
are  generally  so  rare  or  so  insignificant,  even  in  present 
forms  of  life  as  to  require  a  power  other  than  those  of  life 
in  general  to  bring  them  forth  when  needed,  or  to  produce 
them  in  useful  amounts. 

The  first  example  of  the  working  of  Natural  Selection  is  the 
well-known  *case  of  the  neck  of  the  giraffe.  This,  it  has  been 
imagined,  though  not  by  Mr.  Darwin,  was  produced  by  its 
supposed  use  in  aiding  this  animal  to  feed  on  the  foliage  of 
trees,  and  by  the  occasional  advantage  of  length  of  neck  to 
the  highest  reaching  individuals,  when  in  drought  and  scarcity 
the  ground  vegetation  and  lower  foliage  were  consumed 
enabling  them  to  survive  the  others  and  in  continuing  the 
species,  to  transmit  this  advantage  to  their  offspring.  With¬ 
out  denying  that  this  is  an  excellent  hypothetical  illustra¬ 
tion  of  the  process  of  Natural  Selection,  Mr.  Mivart  attacks 
its  probability  as  a  matter  of  fact.  In  reply  to  it  he  says : 
“But  against  this  it  may  be  said,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
argument  proves  too  much;  for,  on  this  supposition,  many 
species  must  have  tended  to  undergo  a  similar  modification 
and  we  ought  to  have  at  least  several  forms  similar  to  the 
giraffe  developed  from  different  Ungulata ,”  or  hoofed  beasts. 
We  would  even  go  further  than  Mr.  Mivart,  and  hold  that, 
on  the  hypothesis  in  question,  not  only  several  forms,  but 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


*5° 

the  whole  order  of  Ungulata ,  or  large  portions  of  it,  should 
have  been  similarly  modified;  at  least  those  inhabiting  re¬ 
gions  subject  to  droughts  and  presenting  the  alternative  of 
grazing  on  the  ground  and  browsing  on  the  foliage  of  high 
trees.  But  as  these  alternatives  do  not  universally  exist  in 
regions  inhabited  by  such  animals,  very  long  necks  would  not, 
perhaps,  if  this  hypothesis  were  true,  characterize  the  whole 
order;  as  the  habit  of  herding  does,  for  example.  We  may  ob¬ 
serve,  however,  that  this  illustration  from  the  giraffe’s  neck  is 
not  an  argument  at  all,  and  proves  nothing,  though  the  hy¬ 
pothesis  employed  by  it  is  very  well  called  in  question  by  Mr. 
Mivart’s  criticism.  But  can  Mr.  Mivart  suppose  that,  having 
fairly  called  in  question  the  importance  of  the  high-feeding  use 
of  the  giraffe’s  neck,  he  has  thereby  destroyed  the  utility  of  the 
neck  altogether,  not  only  to  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection, 
but  also  to  the  animal  itself?  Is  there,  then,  no  important  use 
in  the  giraffe’s  neck?  Is  it  really  the  monstrosity  it.  appears  to 
be,  when  seen  out  of  relation  to  the  normal  conditions  of  the 
animal’s  life  ?  But  if  there  be  any  utility  left  in  the  neck,  as  a 
teleologist  or  a  believer  in  Final  Causes  would  assume  without 
question,  and  in  spite  of  this  criticism,  then  this  other  utility 
might  serve  the  purposes  of  Natural  Selection  even  better 
perhaps  than  that  of  the  mistaken  hypothesis.  If  Mr.  Mi¬ 
vart  had  approached  this  subject  in  the  proper  spirit,  his 
criticism  would  probably  have  led  him  to  an  important  ob¬ 
servation,  which  his  desire  to  discredit  a  much  more  im¬ 
portant  discovery  has  hidden  from  his  view.  He  would 
have  inquired  what  are  the  conditions  of  existence  of  the 
Ungulates  generally  and  of  the  giraffe  in  particular,  which 
are  so  close  pressing  and  so  emphatically  attest  the  grounds 
of  their  severest  struggle  for  life,  as  to  be  likely  to  cause 
in  them  the  highest  degree  of  specialty  and  adaptation. 
The  question  of  food  is  obviously  not  concerned  in  such  a 
struggle,  for  this  order  of  animals  lives  generally  upon  food 
which  is  the  most  abundant  and  most  easily  obtained.  Mr. 
Mivart  compares  his  objection  to  one  that  has  been  made 
against  Mr.  Wallace’s  views  as  to  the  uses  of  color  in  animals, 
that  “color  being  dangerous,  should  not  exist  in  nature/  or 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


I5I 

that  “  a  dull  color  being  needful,  all  animals  should  be  so  col¬ 
ored.”  He  quotes  Mr.  Wallace’s  reply,  but  does  not  take  the 
clue  to  the  solution  of  his  difficulty  respecting  the  giraffe’s  neck, 
which  it  almost  forces  on  him.  This  reply  was,  that  many  an¬ 
imals  can  afford  brilliant  colors,  and  their  various  direct  uses 
or  values,  when  the  animals  are  otherwise  provided  with  suffi¬ 
cient  protection,  and  that  brilliant  colors  are  even  sometimes 
indirectly  protective.  The  quills  of  the  porcupine,  the  shells  of 
tortoises  and  mussels,  the  very  hard  coats  of  certain  beetles,  the 
stings  of  certain  other  insects,  the  nauseous  taste  of  brilliantly 
colored  caterpillars,  and  other  instances,  are  given  as  examples 
of  protection  with  color.  Now,  what  bearing  has  this  on  the 
long  neck  of  the  giraffe?  According  to  Mr.  Mivart,  who  is 
himself  at  this  point  on  the  defensive,  it  is  as  follows.  He  says: 
“  But  because  many  different  kinds  of  animals  can  elude  the 
observation  or  defy  the  attack  of  enemies  in  a  great  variety  of 
ways,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  there  are  any  similar  number 
and  variety  of  ways  for  attaining  vegetable  food  in  a  country 
where  all  such  food  ot,her  than  the  lofty  branches  of  trees 
has  been  destroyed.  In  such  a  country  we  have  a  number 
of  vegetable-feeding  Ungulates,  all  of  which  present  minute 
variations  as  to  the  length  of  the  neck.”  Mr.  Mivart  is  appar¬ 
ently  not  aware  that  he  is  here  arguing,  not  against  the  theory 
of  Natural  Selection,  but  against  a  subordinate  and  false  hy¬ 
pothesis  under  it.  But  if  he  thinks  thus  to  undermine  the 
theory,  it  must  be  because  he  is  not  aware  of,  or  has  not 
present  to  his  imagination,  the  numberless  ingenuities  of  nat¬ 
ure,  and  the  resources  of  support  the  theory  has  to  rest  upon. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  neck  of  the  giraffe,  whatever 
other  uses  it  can  be  put  to,  and  it  is  put  to  several,  is  pre-emi¬ 
nently  useful  as  a  watch-tower.  Its  eyes,  large  and  lustrous, 
“which  beam  with  a  peculiarly  mild  but  fearless  expression, 
are  so  placed  as  to  take  in  a  wider  range  of  the  horizon  than  is 
subject  tc  the  vision  of  any  other  quadruped.  While  browning 
on  its  favorite  acacia,  the  giraffe,  by  means  of  its  laterally  pro¬ 
jecting  orbits,  can  direct  its  sight  so  as  to  anticipate  a  threat¬ 
ened  attack  in  the  rear  from  the  stealthy  lion  or  any  other  foe 
of  the  desert.”  When  attacked,  the  giraffe  can  defend  itself 


!52 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


by  powerful  blows  with  its  well-armed  hoofs,  and  even  its  short 
horns  can  inflict  fatal  blows  by  the  sidelong  swing  of  its  neck. 
But  these  are  not  its  only  protections  against  danger.  Its  nos¬ 
trils  can  be  voluntarily  closed,  like  the  camel’s,  against  the 
sandy,  suffocating  clouds  of  the  desert.  “The  tail  of  the  giraffe 
looks  like  an  artificially  constructed  fly-flapper;  and  it  seems 
at  first  incredible,”  says  Mr.  Darwin,  “that  this  could  have 
been  adapted  for  its  present  purpose  by  successive  slight  modi¬ 
fications,  each  better  and  better  fitted,  for  so  trifling  an  object 
as  to  drive  away  flies ;  yet  we  should  pause  before  being  too 
positive,  even  in  this  case,  for  we  know,  that  the  distribution 
and  existence  of  cattle  and  other  animals  in  South  America 
absolutely  depend  on  their  power  of  resisting  the  attacks  of 
insects  ;  so  that  individuals  which  could,  by  any  means,  defend 
themselves  from  these  small  enemies/would  be  able  to  range 
into  new  pastures,  and  thus  gain  a  great  advantage.  It  is  not 
that  the  larger  quadrupeds  are  actually  destroyed  (except  in 
rare  cases)  by  flies,  but  they  are  incessantly  harrassed  and  their 
strength  reduced,  so  that  they  are  more  subject  to  disease,  or 
not  so  well  enabled  in  a  coming  dearth  to  search  for  food,  or 
to  escape  from  beasts  of  prey.” 

This  passage  recalls  our  main  problem,  which  does  not  con¬ 
cern  the  giraffe  alone,  but  all  the  Ungulates;  and  its  solution 
will  show  that  this  order  of  animals  exhibits,  almost  as  well  as 
Mr.  Wallace’s  examples,  the  resources  that  nature  has  for  the 
protection  of  animals  that  have  the  disadvantage,  not,  indeed, 
generally  of  brilliant  colors,  but  of  exposure  by  living  exclu¬ 
sively  on  bulky  and  comparatively  innutritious  food.  Nearly 
all  the  resources  of  defensive  warfare  are  exhausted  in  their 
specialties  of  protection.  The  giraffe  alone  is  provided  with  a 
natural  watch-tower,  but  the  others  are  not  left  without  defense. 
All,  or  nearly  all,  live  in  armies  or  herds,  and  some  post  senti¬ 
nels  around  their  herds.  The  numerous  species  of  the  ante¬ 
lope  resort  to  natural  fortifications  or  fastnesses.  “  They  are 
the  natives  for  the  most  part  of  the  wildest  and  least  accessible 
places  in  the  warmer  latitudes  of  the  globe,  frequenting  the 
cliffs  and  ledges  of  mountain  rocks  or  the  verdure-clad  banks 
of  tropical  streams,  or  the  oases  of  the  desert.”  Other  tribes 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


*53 


depend  on  their  fleetness,  and  on  hiding  in  woods  like  the  deer. 
Others,  again,  on  great  powers  of  endurance  in  flight  and  long 
marches,  like  the  camels  with  their  commissaries  of  provision. 
Others,  again,  with  powerful  frames,  like  the  rhinoceros  and 
the  bisons,  resort  to  defensive  attack.  The  ruminant  habits 
and  organs  of  large  numbers  are  adapted  to  rapid  and  danger¬ 
ous  foraging,  and  to  digestion  under  protection  from  beasts  of 
prey  and  insects. 

But  Mr.  Mivart,  with  little  fertility  of  defense  for  the  theory 
of  Natural  Selection,  is  still  not  without  some  ingenuity  in  at¬ 
tack.  He  objects,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  longest  necked 
giraffes,  being  by  so  much  the  larger  animals,  would  not  be 
strong  in  proportion,  but  would  need  more  food  to  sustain 
them,  a  disadvantage  which  would,  perhaps,  more  than  out¬ 
balance  the  neck  in  times  of  drought ;  and  he  cites  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer’s  ingenious  speculations  on  the  relations  of  size,  food, 
and  strength,  in  confirmation  of  this  objection.  But  he  forgets 
or  overlooks  the  important  physiological  law  of  the  compensa¬ 
tion  or  economy  of  growth  which  prevails  in  variations.  A 
longer  neck  does  not  necessarily  entail  a  greater  bulk  or  weight 
on  the  animal  as  a  whole.  The  neck  may  have  grown  at  the 
expense  of  the  hind  parts  in  the  ancestors  of  the  giraffe.  If  we 
met  with  an  individual  man  with  a  longer  neck  than  usual,  we 
should  not  expect  to  find  him  heavier,  or  relatively  weaker,  or 
requiring  more  food  on  that  account. 

But  let  us  pass  to  the  next  illustration  of  the  insufficiency 
of  Natural  Selection.  This  is  the  difficulty  Mr.  Mivart  finds 
in  attributing  to  this  cause  various  cases  of  mimicry  or  pro¬ 
tective  resemblances  of  animals  to  other  animals,  or  to  other 
natural  objects.  In  some  insects  this  is  carried  to  a  won¬ 
derful  extent.  Thus,  some  which  imitate  leaves  when  at 
rest,  in  the  sizes,  shapes,  colors,  and  markings  of  their 
wings,  “ extend  the  imitation  even  to  the  very  injuries  on 
those  leaves  made  by  the  attacks  of  insects  or  fungi.”  Thus 
Mr.  Wallace  says  of  the  walking-stick  insects :  “  One  of 
these  creatures,  obtained  by  myself  in  Borneo,  was  covered 
over  with  foliaceous  excrescences  of  a  clear  olive-green  color 
so  as  exactly  to  resemble  a  stick  grown  over  by  creeping 


*54 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


moss  or  jungermannia.  The  Dyak  who  brought  it  me  assured 
me  it  was  grown  over  with  moss,  although  alive,  and  it  was 
only  after  a  most  minute  examination  that  I  could  convince 
myself  it  was  not  so.”  And  in  speaking  of  the  leaf-butterfly, 
he  says :  “  We  come  to  a  still  more  extraordinary  part  of  the 
imitation,  for  we  find  representations  of  leaves  in  every  stage 
of  decay,  variously  blotched  and  mildewed,  and  pierced  with 
holes,  and  in  many  cases  irregularly  covered  with  powdery 
1  flack  dots,  gathered  into  patches  and  spots,  so  closely  resem¬ 
bling  the  various  kinds  of  minute  fungi  that  grow  on  dead 
leaves  that  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  thinking,  at  first  sight,  that 
the  butterflies  themselves  have  been  attacked  by  real  fungi.” 
Upon  these  passages  Mr.  Mivart  remarks:  “Here  imitation 
has  attained  a  development  which  seems  utterly  beyond  the 
power  of  the  mere  ‘  survival  of  the  fittest  ’  to  produce.  How 
this  double  mimicry  can  importantly  aid  in  the  struggle  for  life 
seems  puzzling  indeed,  but  much  more  so  how  the  first  begin¬ 
nings  of  the  imitation  of  such  injuries  in  the  leaf  can  be  devel¬ 
oped  in  the  animal  into  such  a  complete  representation  of 
them  ;  a  fortiori ,  how  simultaneous  and  similar  first  beginnings 
of  imitations  of  such  injuries  could  ever  have  been  developed 
in  several  individuals,  out  of  utterly  indifferent  and  indetermi¬ 
nate  infinitesimal  variations  in  all  conceivable  directions.” 

What  ought  to  have  been  first  suggested  to  a  naturalist  by 
this  wonderful  mimicry  is,  what  clever  entomologists  some 
insectivorous  birds  must  have  become  to  be  able  to  press  the 
conditions  of  existence  and  the  struggle  for  life  in  these  in¬ 
sects  to  such  a  degree  of  specialty.  But  this,  after  all,  is  not 
so  very  wonderful,  when  we  consider  what  microscopic  sight 
these  birds  must  have  acquired  and  what  practice  and  exclusive 
interest  in  the  pursuit !  We  may  feel  pretty  confident,  how¬ 
ever,  that  neither  Natural  Selection  nor  any  occult  or  transcend¬ 
ental  cause  has  ever  carried  protective  mimicry  beyond  eye¬ 
sight,  though  it  may  well  be  a  better  eyesight  than  that  even 
of  a  skillful  naturalist.  There  is  no  necessity  to  suppose,  with 
our  author,  that  the  variations  on  which  this  selection  depended 
were  either  simultaneous,  or  infinitesimal,  or  indifferent,  for 
“individual  differences”  are  always  considerable  and  generally 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


J55 


greatest  in  directions  in  which  variations  have  already  most 
recently  occurred,  as  in  characters  in  which  closely  allied  races 
differ  most  from  each  other;  but,  doubtless,  a  very  long  time 
was  required  for  these  very  remarkable  cases  of  mimicry  to 
come  to  pass.  The  difficulties  they  present  resemble  those  of 
the  development  of  sight  itself,  on  which  Mr.  Mivart  com¬ 
ments  elsewhere ;  but  in  these  particular  cases  the  conditions 
of  “hide  and  seek”  in  the  sport  of  nature  offer  correlated 
difficulties,  which,  like  acid  and  alkali,  serve  to  neutralize  each 
other.  In  these  cases,  four  distinct  forms  of  life  of  widely 
diverse  origins,  or  very  remotely  connected  near  the  beginnings 
of  life  itself,  like  four  main  branches  of  a  tree,  have  come  to¬ 
gether  into  closest  relations,  as  parts  of  the  foliage  of  the  four 
main  branches  might  do.  These  are  certain  insectivorous 
birds,  certain  higher  vegetable  forms,  the  imitated  sticks  or 
leaves,  certain  vegetable  parasites  on  them,  and  the  mimicking 
insects.  But  the  main  phenomenon  was  and  is  the  neck-and- 
neck  race  of  variation  and  the  selection  between  the  powers  of 
hiding  in  the  insect  and  the  powers  of  finding  in  the  bird.  Mr. 
Mivart  overlooks  the  fact  that  variations  in  the  bird  are  quite 
as  essential  to  the  process  as  those  of  the  insect,  and  has  chosen 
to  consider  elsewhere  the  difficulties  which  the  developments 
of  the  eye  present,  and  to  consider  them  in  equal  independence 
of  its  obvious  uses.  The  fact  that  these,  as  well  as  other  ex¬ 
traordinary  cases  of  mimicry,  are  found  only  in  tropical  cli¬ 
mates,  or  climates  equable  not  only  in  respect  to  short  periodic 
but  also  secular  changes,  accords  well  with  the  probable  length 
of  time  in  which  this  competition  has  been  kept  up ;  and  the 
extraordinary,  that  is,  rare  character  of  the  phenomenon  agrees 
well  with  the  probable  supposition  that  it  has  always  begun  in 
what  we  call  in  science  “an  accident.”  If  its  beginnings  were 
common,  their  natural  consequences  would  also  be  common, 
and  would  not  be  wonderful ;  and  if  it  arose  from  a  destructive, 
unintelligent,  evil  principle, — from  Ahriman, — it  has,  at  least, 
shown  how  the  course  of  nature  has  been  able  to  avoid  destruc¬ 
tion,  to  the  astonishment  of  human  intelligence,  and  how 
Oromasdes  has  been  able  to  defeat  his  antagonist  by  turning 
evil  into  good. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


*56 

Let  us  take  next  Mr.  Mivart’s  treatment  of  a  supposed  origin 
of  the  mammary,  or  milk  glands : 

“Is  it  conceivable,”  he  asks  (p.  60),  “that  the  young  of  any  animal 
was  ever  saved  from  destruction  by  accidentally  sucking  a  drop  of  scarcely 
nutritious  fluid  from  an  accidentally  hypertrophied  cutaneous  gland  of  its 
mother  ?  And  even  if  one  was  so,  what  chance  was  there  of  the  perpet¬ 
uation  of  such  a  variation?  On  the  hypothesis  of  ‘Natural  Selection’ 
itself  we  must  assume  that,  up  to  that  time,  the  race  had  been  well  adapt¬ 
ed  to  the  surrounding  conditions;  the  temporary  and  accidental  trial  and 
change  of  conditions,  which  caused  the  so-sucking  young  one  to  be  the 
‘fittest  to  survive’  under  the  supposed  circumstances,  would  soon  cease 
to  act,  and  then  the  progeny  of  the  mother,  with  the  accidentally  hyper¬ 
trophied  sebaceous  glands,  would  have  no  tendency  to  survive  the  far- 
outnumbering  descendants  of  the  normal  ancestral  form.” 

Here,  as  before,  Mr.  Mivart  stakes  the  fate  of  the  theory  on 
the  correctness  of  his  own  conceptions  of  the  conditions  of  its 
action.  He  forgets,  first  of  all,  that  the  use  of  a  milk  gland  in 
its  least  specialized  form  requires  atjeast  a  sucking  mouth,  and 
that  sucking  mouths  and  probosces  have  very  extensive  uses  in 
the  animal  kingdom.  They  are  good  for  drinking  water  and 
nectar,  and  are  used  for  drawing  blood  as  well  as  milk ;  and, 
without  reference  to  alimentation,  are  still  serviceable  for  sup¬ 
port  to  parasitical  animals.  Might  not  the  young,  which  before 
birth  are,  in  a  high  degree,  parasitical  in  all  animals,  find  it 
highly  advantageous  to  continue  the  habit  after  birth,  even 
without  reference  to  food,  but  for  the  generally  quite  as  impor¬ 
tant  use  of  protection  against  enemies,  by  clinging  by  a  suck¬ 
ing  mouth  to  the  body  of  its  dam  ?  If  this  should  cause  seba¬ 
ceous  glands  to  become  hypertrophied  and  ultimately  a  valuable 
or  even  an  exclusive  source  of  nutrition,  it  would,  perhaps,  be 
proper  to  describe  the  phenomenon  as  an  unintended  or  acci¬ 
dental,  but  not  as  a  rare  or  improbable  one.  Moreover,  though 
on  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  (or,  indeed,  on  any  theory 
of  the  continuance  of  a  race  by  modifications  of  structures  and 
habits),  the  race  must,  while  it  lives,  be  fitted  to  live,  yet  it 
need  be  no  more  fitted  to  do  so  than  to  survive  in  its  offspring. 
No  race  is  so  well  fitted  to  its  general  conditions  of  existence, 
but  that  some  individuals  are  better  fitted  than  others,  and 
have,  on  the  average,  an  advantage.  And  new  resources  do 
not  imply  abandonment  of  the  old,  but  only  additions  to  them, 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


*57 


giving  superiorities  that  are  almost  never  superfluous.  How, 
indeed,  but  by  accidents  of  the  rarest  occurrence,  could  varia¬ 
tion  (much  less  selection)  give  superfluous  advantages,  on  the 
whole,  or  except  temporarily  and  so  far  as  normal  variations 
anticipate  in  general,  regular,  or  usual  changes  in  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  existence  ?  We  have,  to  be  sure,  on  the  hypothesis  we 
have  proposed,  still  to  account  for  the  original  of  the  sucking 
mouth,  though  its  numerous  uses  are  obvious  enough,  on  the 
really  uniform  and  unvarying  types  of  natural  law,  the  laws  of 
inorganic  physics,  the  principles  of  suction.  But  we  are  not 
ambitious  to  rival  nature  in  ingenuity,  only  to  contrast  its  re¬ 
sources  with  those  of  our  naturalist. 

His  next  example  is  a  criticism  of  the  theory  of  Sexual 
Selection.  Speaking  of  apes,  he  says:  “When  we  consider 
what  is  known  of  the  emotional  nature  of  these  animals 
and  the  periodicity  of  its  intensification,  it  is  hardly  credible 
that  a  female  would  often  risk  life  or  limb  through  her  ad¬ 
miration  of  a  trifling  shade  of  color  or  an  infinitesimally 
greater,  though  irresistibly  fascinating  degree  of  wartiness.” 
Is  it  credible  that  Mr.  Mivart  can  suppose  that  the  higher 
or  spiritual  emotions,  like  affection,  taste,  conscience,  ever 
act  directly  to  modify  or  compete  with  the  more  energetic 
lower  impulses,  and  not  rather  by  forestalling  and  indirectly 
regulating  them,  as  by  avoiding  temptation  in  the  case  of  con¬ 
science;  or  by  establishing  social  arrangements,  companion¬ 
ships,  friendships,  and  more  or  less  permanent  marriages  in 
the  case  of  sexual  preferences  ?  All  such  arrangements,  all 
grounds  for  the  action  of  taste  or  admiration,  or  any  but  the 
most  monstrous  friendships,  are  prevented  or  removed  in  the 
lives  of  caged  beasts.  His  example  and  his  inference  from  it 
are  as  much  as  if  an  explorer  should  discover  a  half-famished 
tribe  of  savages  sustaining  life  upon  bitter  and  nauseous  food, 
and  should  conclude  that  not  only  these  but  all  savages,  the 
most  provident,  or  even  all  men,  are  without  any  choice  in 
food,  and  that  in  providing  for  future  wants  they  are  influ¬ 
enced  by  no  other  considerations  than  the  grossest  cravings  of 
appetite. 

But  to  return  to  Natural  Selection.  The  next  example  is 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


158 

that  of  the  rattling  and  expanding  powers  of  poisonous  snakes. 
The  author  says  that  “in  poisonous  serpents,  also,  we  have 
structures  which,  at  all  events,  at  first  sight,  seem  positively 
hurtful  to  these  reptiles.  Such  are  the  rattle  of  the  rattlesnake 
and  the  expanding  neck  of  the  cobra,  the  former  serving  to 
warn  the  ear  of  the  intended  victim  as  the  latter  warns  the 
eye.”  This  “first  sight”  is  all  the  use  our  author  discovers  in 
these  organs;  but  why  should  these  warnings  be  intended  or 
used  to  drive  away  intended  victims  rather  than  enemies  ?  Or 
is  it  among  the  intentions  of  nature  to  defeat  those  of  the  ser¬ 
pent?  If  the  effects  of  such  “warnings”  really  were  to 
deprive  these  snakes  of  their  proper  food,  would  not  experience 
itself  and  intelligence  be  sufficient  in  the  wily  serpent  to  correct 
such  perverse  instincts?  It  is,  indeed,  at  first  sight,  curious 
that  certain  snakes,  though  these  are  the  sluggish  kinds,  and 
cannot  so  easily  escape  their  enemies  by  flight  as  others  can, 
should  be  provided,  not  only  with  poisonous  fangs,  but  with 
these  means  of  warning  either  victims  or  dangerous  enemies. 
But  Mr.  Wallace  has  furnished  a  clew  to  their  correlation  by 
his  example  of  the  relations  between  conspicuous  colors  and 
nauseous  tastes  in  many  caterpillars,  the  color  serving  as  a  sign 
of  the  taste  and  warning  birds  not  to  touch  these  kinds.  The 
poisonous  fang  and  its  use  are  expensive  and  risky  means  of 
defense;  the  warnings  associated  with  them  are  cheap  and 
safe.  But  if,  as  is  very  likely,  these  “warnings”  are  also  used 
against  intended  victims,  they  can  only  be  used  either  to 
paralyze  them  with  terror  or  allure  them  from  curiosity,  or  to 
produce  in  them  that  curious  and  paralyzing  mixture  of  the  two 
emotions,  alarm  and  something  like  curiosity,  which  is  all  that 
is  probably  true  of  the  supposed  powers  of  fascination  *  in  ser¬ 
pents.  Perhaps,  also,  the  rattle  serves  to  inspire  the  sluggish 
snake  itself  with  courage;  and  in  this  case  the  rattle  will  serve 


*  This  is  a  real  condition  of  mind  in  the  subject  of  it;  a  condition  in  which  interest  or 
emotion  gives  to  an  idea  such  fixity  and  power  that  it  takes  possession  at  a  fatal  mo¬ 
ment  of  the  will  and  acts  itself  out;  as  in  the  fascination  of  the  precipice.  It  is  not, 
however,  to  be  regarded  as  a  natural  contrivance  in  the  mental  acquisitions  of  the  vic¬ 
tims  for  the  benefit  of  the  serpent  any  more  than  the  serpent’s  warnings  are  for  their 
benefit;  but  as  a  consequence  of  ultimate  mental  laws  in  general,  of  which  the  serpent  s 
faculties  and  habits  take  advantage. 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


JS9 


all  the  purposes  that  drums,  trumpets,  and  gongs  do  in  human 
warfare.  The  swaying  body  and  vibrating  tongue  of  most 
snakes,  and  the  expanding  neck  and  the  hood  of  the  cobras, 
may  serve  for  banners.  But  the  rattle  has  also  been  supposed 
to  serve  as  a  sexual  call,  very  much  as  the  inspirations  of  war¬ 
fare  are  turned  into  the  allurements  of  the  tournament,  or  as 
gongs  also  serve  to  call  travelers  to  dinner.  What  poverty  of 
resources  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  use  in  the  lives  of  ani¬ 
mals  thus  distinguishes  our  naturalist  from  the  natural  order 
of  things !  What  wealth  and  capital  are  left  for  the  employ¬ 
ments  and  industries  of  Natural  Selection! 

In  the  next  chapter  Mr.  Mivart  charges  the  theory  of  Natural 
Selection  with  inability  to  account  for  independent  similarities 
of  structure;  “that  it  does  not  harmonize  with  the  co-existence 
of  closely  similar  structures  of  diverse  origin,”  like  the  dental 
structures  in  the  dog  and  in  the  carnivorous  marsupial,  the 
Thylacine,  closely  similar  structures  and  of  exactly  the  same 
utilities,  though  belonging  to  races  so  diverse  that  their  com¬ 
mon  ancestors  could  not  have  been  like  them  in  respect  to  this 
resemblance.  But  these  structures  really  differ  in  points  not 
essential  to  their  utilities;  in  characters  which,  though  incon¬ 
spicuous,  are  marks  of  the  two  great  divisions  of  mammalia, 
to  which  these  animals  belong.  Mr.  Mivart  here  attacks  the 
theory  in  its  very  citadel,  and  has  incautiously  left  a  hostile 
force  in  his  rear.  He  has  claimed  in  the  preceding  chapter 
for  Natural  Selection  that  it  ought  to  have  produced  several 
independent  races  of  long-necked  Ungulates,  as  well  as  the 
giraffe;  so  that,  instead  of  pursuing  his  illustrations  any  further, 
we  may  properly  demand  his  surrender.  Of  course  Natural 
Selection  requires  for  similar  products  similar  means  and  con¬ 
ditions  ;  but  these  are  of  such  a  general  sort  that  they  belong 
to  wide  ranges  of  life;  and  as  it  does  not  act  by  “blind 
chance,”  or  theological  accidents,  but  by  the  invariable  laws  of 
nature  and  the  tentative  powers  of  life,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
it  often  repeats  its  patterns  independently  of  descent,  or  of  the 
copying  powers  of  inheritance. 

That  the  highest  products  of  nature  are  not  the  results  of 
the  mere  forces  of  inheritance,  and  do  not  come  from  the  birth 


i6o 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  latent  powers  and  structures,  seems  to  be  the  lesson  of  the 
obscure  discourse  in  which  Jesus  endeavored  to  instruct  Nico- 
demus  the  Pharisee.  How  is  it  that  a  man  can  be  born  again, 
acquire  powers  and  characters  that  are  not  developments  of 
what  is  already  innate  in  him  ?  How  is  it  possible  when  he 
is  old  to  acquire  new  innate  principles,  or  to  enter  a  second 
time  into  his  mother’s  womb  and  be  born  ?  The  reply  does 
not  suggest  our  author’s  hypothesis  of  a  life  turning  over  upon 
a  new  “  facet,”  or  a  new  set  of  latent  inherited  power's.  Only 
the  symbols,  water  and  the  Spirit,  which  Christians  have  ever 
since  worshiped,  are  given  in  reply;  but  the  remarkable  illus¬ 
tration  of  the  accidentality  of  nature  is  added,  which  has  been 
almost  equally  though  independently  admired.  “  Marvel  not 
that  I  said  unto  thee,  Ye  must  be  born  again.  The  wind  blow- 
eth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but 
canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth;  so  is 
every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit.”  The  highest  products  of 
nature  are  the  outcome  of  its  total  and  apparently  accidental 
orders;  or  are  born  of  water  and  the  Spirit,  which  symbolize 
creative  power.  To  this  the  Pharisee  replied:  “How  can 
these  things  be?”  And  the  answer  is  still  more  significant: 
“Art  thou  a  master  of  Israel  and  knowest  not  these  things?” 
We  bring  natural  evidences,  “and  ye  receive  not  our  witness. 
If  I  have  told  you  earthly  (natural)  things,  and  ye  believe  not, 
how  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  heavenly  (supernatural) 
things  ?  ”  The  bearing  of  our  subject  upon  the  doctrine  of  Final 
Causes  in  natural  history  has  been  much  discussed  and  is  of 
considerable  importance  to  our  author’s  theory  and  criticism. 
But  we  propose,  not  only  to  distinguish  between  this  branch  of 
theology  and  the  theories  of  inductive  science  on  one  hand, 
but  still  more  emphatically,  on  the  other  hand,  between  it  and 
the  Christian  faith  in  divine  superintendency,  which  is  very  lia¬ 
ble  to  be  confounded  with  it.  The  Christian  faith  is  that  even 
the  fall  of  a  sparrow  is  included  in  this  agency,  and  that  as  men 
are  of  more  value  than  many  sparrows,  so  much  more  is  their 
security.  So  far  from  weakening  this  faith  by  showing  the 
connection  between  value  and  security,  science  and  the  theory 
of  Natural  Selection  have  confirmed  it.  The  very  agencies 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES . 


161 


that  give  values  to  life  secure  them  by  planting  them  most 
broadly  in  the  immutable  grounds  of  utility.  But  Natural 
Theology  has  sought  by  Platonic,  not  Christian,  imaginations 
to  discover,  not  the  relations  of  security  to  value,  but  some¬ 
thing  worthy  to  be  the  source  of  the  value  considered  as  abso¬ 
lute^  some  particular  worthy  source  of  each  valued  end.  This 
is  the  motive  of  that  speculation  of  Final  Causes  which  Bacon 
condemned  as  sterile  and  corrupting  to  philosophy,  interfering, 
as  it  does,  with  the  study  of  the  facts  of  nature,  or  of  what  is, 
by  preconceptions,  necessarily  imperfect  as  to  what  ought  to  be; 
and  by  deductions  from  assumed  ends ,  thought  worthy  to  be 
the  purposes  of  nature.  The  naturalists  who  “take  care  not 
to  ascribe  to  God  any  intention,”  sin  rather  against  the  spirit 
of  Platonism  than  that  of  Christianity,  while  obeying  the  pre¬ 
cepts  of  experimental  philosophy.  Though,  as  our  author 
says,  in  speaking  of  the  moral  sense  and  the  impossibility,  as 
he  thinks,  that  the  accumulations  of  small  repugnances  could 
give  rise  to  the  strength  of  its  abhorrence  and  reprobation; 
though,  as  he  says,  “  no  stream  can  rise  higher  than  its  source”; 
while  fully  admitting  the  truth  of  this,  we  would  still  ask, 
Where  is  its  source  ?  Surely  not  in  the  little  fountains  that 
Platonic  explorers  go  in  search  of,  a  priori ,  which  would  soon 
run  dry  but  for  the  rains  of  heaven,  the  water  and  the  vapor 
of  the  distilling  atmosphere.  Out  of  this  come  also  the  almost 
weightless  snow-flakes,  which,  combined  in  masses  of  great 
gravity,  fall  in  the  avalanche.  The  results  of  moralizing  Pla¬ 
tonism  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  simple  Christian 
faith  in  Divine  superintendence.  The  often-quoted  belief  of 
Professor  Gray,  “that  variation  has  been  led  along  certain 
beneficial  lines,  like  a  stream  along  definite  lines  of  irrigation,” 
might  be  interpreted  to  agree  with  either  view.  The  lines  on 
which  variations  are  generally  useful  are  lines  of  search,  and 
their  particular  successes,  dependent,  it  is  true,  on  no  theo¬ 
logical  or  absolute  accidents,  may  be  regarded  as  being  lines 
of  beneficial  variations,  seeing  that  they  have  resulted  through 
laws  of  nature  and  principles  of  utility  in  higher  living  forms, 
or  even  in  continuing  definite  forms  of  life  on  the  earth.  But 
thousands  of  movements  of  variation,  or  efforts  of  search,  have 


162 


PHIL  0 SO PHI C A  L  DISC  US SI ON S. 


not  succeeded  to  one  that  has.  These  are  not  continued  along 
evil  lines,  since  thousands  of  forms  have  perished  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  them  for  every  one  that  has  survived. 

The  growth  of  a  tree  is  a  good  illustration  of  this  process, 
and  more  closely  resembles  the  action  of  selection  in  nature 
generally  than  might  at  first  sight  appear ;  for  its  branches  are 
selected  growths,  a  few  out  of  many  thousands  that  have  begun 
in  buds ;  and  this  rigorous  selection  has  been  effected  by  the 
accidents  that  have  determined  in  surviving  growths  superior 
relations  to  their  supplies  of  nutriment  in  the  trunk  and  in  ex¬ 
posure  to  light  and  air.  This  exposure  (as  great  as  is  consist¬ 
ent  with  secure  connection  with  the  sources  of  sap)  seems 
actually  to  be  sought,  and  the  form  of  the  tree  to  be  the  result 
of  some  foresight  in  it.  But  the  real  seeking  process  is  bud¬ 
ding,  and  the  geometrical  regularity  of  the  production  of  buds 
in  twigs  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  ultimate  selected 
results,  the  distributions  of  the  branches,  which  are  different  for 
each  individual  tree.  Even  if  the  determinate  variations  really 
existed, — the  “facets”  of  stable  equilibrium  in  life,  which  Mr. 
Mivart  supposes, — and  were  arranged  with  geometrical  regu¬ 
larity  on  their  spheroid  of  potential  forms,  as  leaves  and  buds 
are  in  the  twig,  they  would  probably  have  as  little  to  do  with 
determining  the  ultimate  diversities  of  life  under  the  action  of 
the  selection  which  our  author  admits,  as  phyllotaxy  has  to- 
do  with  the  branching  of  trees.  But  phyllotaxy,  also,  has 
its  utility.  Its  orders  are  the  best  for  packing  the  incipient 
leaves  in  the  bud,  and  the  best  for  the  exposure  to  light  and 
air  of  the  developed  leaves  of  the  stem.  But  here  its  utility 
ends,  except  so  far  as  its  arrangements  also  present  the  great¬ 
est  diversity  of  finite  elements,  within  the  smallest  limits,  for 
the  subsequent  choice  of  successful  growths ;  being  the  7iearest 
appi'oaches  that  finite  regularity  could  make  to  “indefinite  vari¬ 
ations  in  all  conceivable  directions.”  The  general  resemblance 
of  trees  of  a  given  kind  depends  on  no  formative  principle  other 
than  physical  and  physiological  properties  in  the  woody  tissue, 
and  is  related  chiefly  to  the  tenacity,  flexibility,  and  vascularity 
of  this  tissue,  the  degrees  of  which  might  almost  be  inferred 
from  the  general  form  of  the  tree.  It  cannot  be  doubted,  in 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES . 


163 


the  case  of  the  tree,  that  this  tentative  though  regular  budding 
has  been  of  service  to  the  production  of  the  tree’s  growth,  and 
that  the  particular  growths  which  have  survived  and  become 
the  bases  of  future  growths  were  determined  by  a  beneficial 
though  accidental  order  of  events  under  the  total  orders  of  the 
powers  concerned  in  the  tree’s  development.  But  if  a  rigorous 
selection  had  not  continued  in  this  growth,  no  proper  branching 
would  have  resulted.  The  tree  would  have  grown  like  a  cab¬ 
bage.  Hence  it  is  to  selection,  and  not  to  variation, — or  rather 
to  the  causes  of  selection,  and  not  to  those  of  variation, — that 
species,  or  well-marked  and  widely  separated  forms  of  life,  are 
due.  If  we  could  study  the  past  and  present  forms  of  life,  not 
only  in  different  continents,  which  we  may  compare  to  different 
individual  trees  of  the  same  kind,  or  better,  perhaps,  to  different 
main  branches  from  the  same  trunk  and  roots,  but  could  also 
study  the  past  and  present  forms  of  life  in  different  planets,  then 
diversities  in  the  general  outlines  would  probably  be  seen  sim¬ 
ilar  to  those  which  distinguish  different  kinds  of  trees,  as  the 
oak,  the  elm,  and  the  pine ;  dependent,  as  in  these  trees,  on 
differences  in  the  physical  and  physiological  properties  of  living 
matters  in  the  different  planets, — supposing  the  planets,  of 
course,  to  be  capable  of  sustaining  life,  like  the  earth,  or,  at 
least,  to  have  been  so  at  some  period  in  the  history  of  the  solar 
system.  We  might  find  that  these  general  outlines  of  life  in 
other  planets  resemble  elms  or  oaks,  and  are  not  pyramidal  in 
form  like  the  pine,  with  a  “crowning”  animal  like  man  to  lead 
their  growths.  For  man,  for  aught  we  know  or  could  guess, 
but  for  the  highly  probable  accidents  of  nature,  which  blight 
the  topmost  terminal  bud  and  give  ascendency  to  some  lateral 
one,  except  for  these  accidents,  man  may  have  always  been 
the  crown  of  earthly  creation,  or  always  “man,”  if  you  choose 
so  to  name  and  define  the  creature  who,  though  once  an  as- 
cidian  (when  the  ascidian  was  the  highest  form  of  life),  viay 
have  been  the  best  of  the  ascidians.  This  would,  perhaps,  add 
nothing  to  the  present  value  of  the  race,  but  it  might  satisfy 
the  Platonic  demand  that  the  race,  though  not  derived  from  a 
source  quite  worthy  of  it,  yet  should  come  from  the  best  in 
nature. 


164 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


We  are  thus  led  to  the  final  problem,  at  present  an  appar¬ 
ently  insoluble  mystery,  of  the  origin  of  the  first  forms  of  life 
on  the  earth.  On  this  Mr.  Darwin  uses  the  figurative  language 
of  religious  mystery,  and  speaks  “  of  life  with  its  several  pow¬ 
ers  being  originally  breathed  by  the  Creator  into  a  few  forms 
or  into  one.”  For  this  expression  Mr.  Mivart  takes  him  to 
task,  though  really  it  could  mean  no  more  than  if  the  gravita- 
tive  properties  of  bodies  were  referred  directly  to  the  agency 
of  a  First  Cause,  in  which  the  philosopher  professed  to  believe; 
at  the  same  time  expressing  his  unwillingness  to  make  hypoth¬ 
eses,  that  is,  transcendental  hypotheses,  concerning  occult  modes 
of  action.  But  life  is,  indeed,  divine,  and  there  is  grandeur 
in  the  view,  as  Mr.  Darwin  says,  which  derives  from  so  simple 
yet  mysterious  an  origin,  and  “from  the  war  of  nature,  from  fam¬ 
ine  and  death,  the  most  exalted  object  which  we  are  capable 
of  conceiving,  namely,  the  production  of  the  higher  animals.” 
Mr.  Mivart,  however,  is  much  more  “advanced”  than  Mr. 
Darwin  on  the  question  of  the  origin  of  life  or  archigenesis, 
and  the  possibility  of  it  as  a  continuous  and  present  operation 
of  nature.  He  admits  what  is  commonly  called  “spontane¬ 
ous  generation,”  believing  it,  however,  to  be  not  what  in  the¬ 
ology  is  understood  by  “spontaneous,”  but  only  a  sudden 
production  of  life  by  chemical  synthesis  out  of  inorganic  ele¬ 
ments.  The  absence  of  decisive  evidence  on  this  point  does 
not  deter  him,  but  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  can  be  reconciled 
to  the  strictest  orthodoxy,  and  accords  well  with  our  author’s 
theory  of  sudden  changes  in  species,  appears  to  satisfy  him 
of  its  truth.  The  theory  of  Pangenesis,  on  the  other  hand, 
invented  by  Mr.  Darwin  for  a  different  purpose,  though  not 
inconsistent  with  the  very  slow  generation  of  vital  forces  out 
of  chemical  actions, — slow,  that  is,  and  insignificant  compared 
to  the  normal  actions  and  productions  of  chemical  forces, — is 
hardly  compatible  with  the  sudden  and  conspicuous  appear¬ 
ance  of  new  life  under  the  microscope  of  the  observer.  This 
theory  was  invented  like  other  provisional  theories, — like  New¬ 
ton’s  corpuscular  theory  of  light,  like  the  undulatory  theory  of 
light  (though  this  is  no  longer  provisional),  and  like  the  chem¬ 
ical  theory  of  atoms, — for  the  purpose  of  giving  a  material  or 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


165 

visual  basis  to  the  phenomena  and  empirical  laws  of  life  in 
general,  by  embodying  in  such  supposed  properties  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  development,  the  laws  of  inheritance,  and  the  vari¬ 
ous  modes  of  reproduction,  just  as  the  chemical  theory  of  atoms 
embodies  in  visual  and  tangible  properties  the  laws  of  definite 
and  multiple  proportions,  and  the  relations  of  gaseous  volumes 
in  chemical  unions,  together  with  the  principle  of  isomerism 
and  the  relations  of  equivalent  weights  to  specific  heats.  The 
theory  of  Pangenesis  presents  life  and  vital  forces  in  their  ulti¬ 
mate  and  essential  elements  as  perfectly  continuous,  and  in 
great  measure  isolated  from  other  and  coarser  orders  of  forces, 
like  the  chemical  and  mechanical,  except  so  far  as  these  are  the 
necessary  theatres  of  their  actions.  Gemmules,  or  vital  mole¬ 
cules,  the  smallest  bodies  which  have  separable  parts  under  the 
action  of  vital  forces,  and  of  the  same  order  as  the  scope  of 
action  in  these  forces, — these  minute  bodies,  though  probably 
as  much  smaller  than  chemical  molecules  as  these  are  smaller 
than  rocks  or  pebbles,  may  yet  exist  in  unorganized  materials 
as  well  as  in  the  germs  of  eggs,  seeds,  and  spores,  just  as  crys¬ 
talline  structures  or  chemical  aggregations  may  be  present  in 
bodies  whose  form  and  aggregation  are  mainly  due  to  mechan¬ 
ical  forces.  And,  as  in  mechanical  aggregations  (like  sediment¬ 
ary  rocks),  chemical  actions  and  aggregations  slowly  supervene 
and  give  in  the  metamorphosis  of  these  rocks  an  irregular  crys¬ 
talline  structure,  so  it  is  supposable  that  finer  orders  of  forces 
lying  at  the  heart  of  fluid  matter  may  slowly  produce  imperfect 
and  irregular  vital  aggregations.  But  definite  vital  aggrega¬ 
tions  and  definite  actions  of  vital  forces  exist,  for  the  most  part, 
in  a  world  by  themselves,  as  distinct  from  that  of  chemical 
forces,  actions,  and  aggregations  as  these  are  from  the  mechan¬ 
ical  ones  of  dynamic  surface-geology,  which  produce  and  are 
embodied  in  visible  and  tangible  masses  through  forces  the 
most  directly  apparent  and  best  understood;  or  as  distinct  as 
these  are  from  the  internal  forces  of  geology  and  the  masses 
of  continents  and  mountain  formations  with  which  they  deal; 
or  as  distinct  again  as  these  are  from  the  actions  of  gravity  and 
the  masses  in  the  solar  system;  or,  again,  as  these  are  from  the 
unknown  forces  and  conditions  that  regulate  sidereal  aggrega- 


i6  6 


PIIIN  sophical  discussions. 


tions  and  movements.  And  as  to  the  size  of  the  gemmules,  the 
various  orders  of  molecular  sizes  are  limited  in  our  powers  of 
conception  only  by  the  needs  of  hypothesis  in  the  representation 
of  actual  phenomena  under  visual  forms  and  properties.  Sir 
William  Thomson  has  lately  determined  the  probable  sizes  of 
chemical  molecules  from  the  phenomena  of  light,  and  experi¬ 
ments  relating  to  the  law  of  the  “conservation  of  force.”  Ac¬ 
cording  to  these  results,  these  sizes  are  such  that  if  a  drop  of 
water  were  to  be  magnified  to  the  size  of  the  earth,  its  molecules, 
or  parts  dependent  on  the  forces  of  chemical  physics,  would  be 
seen  to  range  from  the  size  of  a  pea  to  that  of  a  billiard-ball. 
But  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  in  every  such  molecule 
there  are  still  subordinate  parts  and  structures;  or  that,  even  in 
these  parts,  a  still  finer  order  of  parts  and  structures  exists,  at 
least  to  the  extent  of  assimilated  growth  and  simple  division. 
Mr.  Darwin  supposes  such  growths  and  divisions  in  the  vital 
gemmules;  but  our  author  objects  (p.  230)  that,  “  to  admit 
the  power  of  spontaneous  division  and  multiplication  in  such 
rudimentary  structures  seems  a  complete  contradiction.  The 
gemmules,  by  the  hypothesis  of  Pangenesis,  are  the  ultimate 
organized  components  of  the  body,  the  absolute  organic  atoms 
of  which  each  body  is  composed;  how  then  can  they  be  divisi¬ 
ble?  Any  part  of  a  gemmule  would  be  an  impossible  (because 
less  than  possible)  quantity.  If  it  is  divisible  into  still  smaller 
organic  wholes,  as  a  germ-cell  is,  it  must  be  made  up,  as  the 
germ-cell  is,  of  subordinate  component  atoms,  which  are  then 
the  true  gemmules.”  But  this  is  to  suppose  what  is  not  im¬ 
plied  in  the  theory  (nor  properly  even  in  the  chemical  theory 
of  atoms),  that  the  sizes  of  these  bodies  are  any  more  constant 
or  determinate  than  those  of  visible  bodies  of  any  order.  It  is 
the  order  only  that  is  determinate;  but  within  it  there  may  be 
wide  ranges  of  sizes.  A  billiard-ball  may  be  divided  into  parts 
as  small  as  a  pea,  or  peas  may  be  aggregated  into  masses  as 
.arge  as  a  billiard-ball,  without  going  beyond  the  order  of  forces 
that  produce  both  sizes.  Our  author  himself  says  afterwards 
and  in  another  connection  (p.  290),  “  It  is  possible  that,  in 
some  minds,  the  notion  may  lurk  that  such  powers  are  simpler 
and  easier  to  understand,  because  the  bodies  they  affect  are  so 


THE  GENESIS  OF  SPECIES. 


167 


minute !  This  absurdity  hardly  bears  stating.  We  can  easily 
conceive  a  being  so  small  that  a  gemmule  would  be  to  it  as 
large  as  St.  Paul’s  would  be  to  us.”  This  argument,  however, 
is  intended  to  discredit  the  theory  on  the  ground  that  it  does 
not  tend  to  simplify  matters,  and  that  we  must  rest  somewhere 
in  “what  the  scholastics  called  ‘substantial  forms.’”  But  this 
criticism,  to  be  just,  ought  to  insist,  not  only  that  vital  phe¬ 
nomena  are  due  to  “a  special  nature,  a  peculiar  innate  power 
and  activity,”  but  that  chemical  atoms  only  complicate  the 
mysteries  of  science  unnecessarily;  that  corpuscles  and  undu¬ 
lations  only  hide  difficulties;  and  that  we  ought  to  explain 
very  simply  that  crystalline  bodies  are  produced  by  “  polarity,” 
and  that  the  phenomena  of  light  and  vision  are  the  effects  of 
“luminosity.”  This  kind  of  simplicity  is  not,  however,  the 
purpose  which  modern  science  has  in  view;  and,  consequently, 
our  real  knowledges,  as  well  as  our  hypotheses,  are  much  more 
complicated  than  were  those  of  the  schoolmen.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  vital  phenomena  themselves  include  orders  of 
forces  as  distinct  as  the  lowest  vital  are  from  chemical  phe¬ 
nomena.  May  not  the  contrast  of  merely  vital  or  vegetative 
phenomena  with  those  of  sensibility  be  of  such  orders?  But, 
in  arriving  at  sensibility ,  we  have  reached  the  very  elements 
out  of  which  the  conceptions  of  size  and  movement  are  con¬ 
structed, — the  elements  of  the  tactual  and  visual  constructions 
that  are  employed  by  such  hypotheses.  Can  sensibility  and 
the  movements  governed  by  it  be  derived  directly  by  chem¬ 
ical  synthesis  from  the  forces  of  inorganic  elements?  It  is 
probable,  both  from  analogy  and  direct  observation,  that  they 
cannot  (though  some  of  the  believers  in  “  spontaneous  genera¬ 
tion”  think  otherwise);  or  that  they  cannot,  except  by  that 
great  alchemic  experiment  which,  employing  all  the  influences 
of  nature  and  all  the  ages  of  the  world,  has  actually  brought 
forth  most  if  not  all  of  the  definite  forms  of  life  in  the  last  and 
greatest  work  of  creative  power. 


y 


EVOLUTION  BY  NATURAL  SELECTION* 

The  physical  problem,  proposed  independently  and  almost 
simultaneously  near  the  beginning  of  this  century  by  three 
eminent  men  of  genius,  Goethe,  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire,  and 
the  elder  Darwin,  how  animals  and  plants  came  to  have  the 
structures  and  habits  that  characterize  them  as  distinct  species, 
this  question  which  was  proposed  in  place  of  the  teleolog¬ 
ical  inquiry,  why  they  were  so  produced,  has  now  fairly  be¬ 
come  a  simple  question  for  scientific  investigation.  There  is  no 
longer  any  doubt  that  this  effect  was  by  some  natural  process, 
and  was  not  by  a  formless  creative  fiat.  Moreover,  there 
scarcely  remains  any  doubt  that  this  natural  process  connects 
the  living  forms  of  the  present  with  very  different  forms  in  the 
past;  and  that  this  connection  is  properly  described  in  general 
terms  as  “descent  with  modification.”  The  question  has  thus 
become  narrowed  down  to  the  inquiry,  What  is  the  nature  of 
this  modification,  or  what  are  the  causes  and  the  modes  of  ac¬ 
tion  by  which  such  modifications  have  been  effected  ? 

This  is  a  great  step  in  scientific  progress.  So  long  as  a  doubt 
remained  about  the  fact  that  such  modifications  have  been  ef¬ 
fected,  and  that  present  living  forms  are  the  results  of  them, 
the  inquiry,  how  they  were  effected,  belonged  to  the  region  of 
profitless  speculation, — profitless  except  for  this,  that  specu¬ 
lative  minds,  boldly  laying  aside  doubts  which  perplex  and 
impede  others,  and  anticipating  their  solution,  have  often  in 
the  history  of  science,  by  preparing  a  way  for  further  progress, 
greatly  facilitated  their  actual  solution.  Difficulties  and  ques¬ 
tions  lying  beyond  such  doubts — walls  to  scale  after  outworks 


*  From  the  North  American  Review,  July,  1872. 


E VOL UTION  BY  NA  TURA L  SELECTION. 


169 


and  ditches  are  passed — do  not  inspire  the  cautious  with  cour¬ 
age.  And  so  the  scientific  world  waited,  though  prepared  with 
ample  force  of  evidence,  and  hesitated  to  take  the  step  which 
would  bring  it  face  to  face  with  the  questions  of  the  present 
and  the  future.  Darwin’s  “  Origin  of  Species,”  by  marshaling 
and  largely  reinforcing  the  evidences  of  evolution,  and  by  can¬ 
didly  estimating  the  opposing  evidence,  and  still  more  by 
pointing  out  a  way  to  the  solution  of  the  greatest  difficulty, 
gave  the  signal  and  the  word  of  encouragement  which  effected 
a  movement  that  had  long  been  impending. 

The  “  that,”  the  fact  of  evolution,  may  be  regarded  as  estab¬ 
lished.  The  “how,”  the  theory  or  explanation  of  it,  is  the 
problem  immediately  before  us.  Its  solution  will  require  many 
years  of  patient  investigation,  and  much  discussion  may  be 
anticipated,  which  will  doubtless  sometimes  degenerate  into 
acrimonious  disputes,  more  especially  in  the  immediate  future, 
while  what  may  be  called  the  dialectics  of  the  subject  are  being 
developed,  and  while  the  bearings  and  the  limits  of  views  and 
questions  are  being  determined,  and  conceptions  and  definitions 
and  kinds  of  arguments  appropriate  to  the  discussion,  are  the 
subjects  on  which  it  is  necessary  to  come  to  a  common  under¬ 
standing.  It  is  highly  desirable  that  this  discussion  should 
be  as  free  as  possible  from  mere  personalities,  and  there  is 
strong  hope  that  it  may  be  kept  so  through  the  manners  and 
methods  of  procedure  established  by  means  of  the  experience 
which  the  history  of  modern  science  affords.  That  it  is 
impossible,  however,  to  avoid  errors  of  this  sort  altogether,  is 
evident  from  the  provocations  experienced  and  keenly  felt  by 
some  of  the  noblest  of  modern  students  of  science  in  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  theories  in  modern  astronomy,  and  of  theories  in 
geology,  to  which  may  now  be  added  the  theory  of  evolution. 
That  the  further  discussion  of  rival  hypotheses  on  the  causes 
and  modes  of  evolution  will  profit  by  these  older  examples  may 
be  hoped,  since  there  have  grown  up  general  methods  of  inves¬ 
tigation  and  discussion,  which  prescribe  limits  and  precautions 
for  hypothesis  and  inference,  and  establish  rules  for  the  con¬ 
duct  of  debate  on  scientific  subjects,  that  have  been  of  the 
greatest  value  to  the  progress  of  science,  and  will,  if  faithfully 
8 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


170 

observed,  doubtless  direct  the  present  discussion  to  a  successful 
issue. 

These  methods  are  analogous  in  their  purposes  to  the  gen¬ 
eral  rules  in  courts  of  law,  and  constitute  the  principles  of 
method  in  experimental  philosophy,  or  in  philosophy  founded 
on  the  sciences  of  observation.  They  serve  to  protect  an 
investigation,  by  demanding  that  it  shall  be  allowed  on  cer¬ 
tain  pretty  strict  conditions  (in  the  conduct  of  experiments 
and  observations,  and  in  the  formation  and  verification  of 
hypotheses)  to  proceed  without  hindrance  from  prejudice 
for  any  existing  doctrine  or  opinion.  An  investigation  may 
thus  start  from  the  simplest  basis  of  experience,  and,  for  this 
purpose,  may  waive,  yet  without  denying,  any  presumption  or 
conclusion  held  in  existing  theories  or  doctrines.  Again,  these 
rules  protect  an  investigation  from  a  one-sided  criticism  or  ex 
parte  judgment,  since  they  demand  of  the  criticism  or  judgment 
the  same  judicial  attitude  that  is  demanded  of  the  investiga¬ 
tion.  Advocacy,  and  especially  the  sort  that  is  of  essential 
value  in  courts  of  law,  where  two  advocates  are  set  against 
each  other,  each  with  the  duty  of  presenting  only  what  can  be 
said  for  his  own  side,  and  where  the  same  judge  and  jury  are 
bound  to  hear  both,  is  singularly  out  of  place  in  a  scientific 
discussion,  unless  in  oral  debate  before  the  tribunal  of  a  sci¬ 
entific  society.  Moreover,  there  are  no  burdens  of  proof  in 
science.  Such  advocacy  in  a  published  work  claiming  scien¬ 
tific  consideration  is  almost  an  offense  against  the  proprieties 
of  such  discussions.  To  collect  together  in  one  place  all  that 
can  be  said  for  an  hypothesis,  and  in  another  all  that  can  be 
said  against  it,  is  at  best  a  clumsy  and  inconvenient  method  of 
discussion,  the  natural  results  of  which  mav  best  be  seen  in  the 
present  condition  of  theological  and  religious  doctrines.  These 
practical  considerations  are  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the 
attainment  of  the  end  of  scientific  pursuit;  which  is  not  to 
arrive  at  decisions  or  judgments  that  are  probably  true,  but  is 
the  discovery  of  the  real  truths  of  nature,  for  which  science 
can  afford  to  wait,  and  for  which  suspended  judgments  are  the 
soundest  substitutes. 

No  work  of  science,  ancient  or  modern,  dealing  with  prob~ 


EVOLUTION  BY  NATURAL  SELECTION. 


171 

lematic  views  and  doctrines,  has  more  completely  conformed 
to  these  principles,  or  more  fully  justified  them  by  its  success, 
than  the  “  Origin  of  Species.”  For  its  real  or  principal  success 
has  been  in  convincing  nearly  all  naturalists,  a  majority  of 
whom,  at  least,  were  still  unconvinced,  of  the  truth  of  the 
theory  of  evolution;  and  this  has  resulted  from  its  obvious 
fairness  and  spirit  of  caution  almost  as  much  as  from  the  pre¬ 
ponderance  of  the  evidences  for  the  theory  when  thus  pre¬ 
sented.  And  the  very  same  qualities  of  spirit  and  method 
governed  the  leading  and  more  strictly  original  design  of  the 
work,  which  cannot,  however,  yet  be  said  to  be  a  complete 
success,  namely,  the  explanation  of  evolution  by  natural  selec¬ 
tion.  That  Mr.  Darwin  himself  is  fully  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  this  explanation  is  sufficiently  evident.  He  holds  that  natu¬ 
ral  selection  is  the  principal  or  leading  cause  in  determining  the 
changes  and  diversities  of  species,  though  not  the  only  cause  of 
the  development  of  their  characters.  Conspicuously  at  the  close 
of  the  Introduction  in  the  first  edition  of  the  work,  and  in  all 
subsequent  editions,  occur  these  words  :  “  I  am  convinced  that 
Natural  Selection  has  been  the  most  important,  but  not  the  ex¬ 
clusive,  means  of  modification.”  That  the  work  is  not  a  merely 
dialectical  performance  is  clear  ;  and  it  is  equally  clear  that 
in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  the  author’s  conviction  is  his 
solicitude  to  give  full  and  just  weight  to  all  valid  objections  to 
it.  In  this  respect  the  work  stands  in  marked  contrast  to  much 
that  has  been  written  on  the  subject  and  in  reply  to  it. 

Once  to  leave  the  vantage-ground  of  scientific  method  and 
adopt  the  advocate’s  ex  parte  mode  of  discussion  almost  neces¬ 
sitates  a  continuance  of  the  discussion  under  this  most  incon¬ 
venient  form.  Mr.  Mivart’s  “  Genesis  of  Species,”  which  we 
examined  in  this  Review  last  J uly,  though  a  conspicuous  exam¬ 
ple  of  such  a  one-sided  treatment  of  a  proper  scientific  question, 
was  by  a  writer  so  distinguished  for  his  attainments  in  science 
that  his  criticism  could  not  well  be  passed  by  without  notice; 
and,  having  also  the  character  of  a  popular  treatise,  it  came 
within  a  wider  province  of  criticism  that  that  of  strictly  scien¬ 
tific  reviews.  Our  notice  of  his  work  was  chiefly  devoted  to  sup¬ 
plying  something  of  what  could  be  and  had  been  said  in  favor 


172 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  the  theory  thus  criticised,  both  by  way  of  defining  and  de¬ 
fending  it.  We  also  followed  the  author  to  some  extent  into 
the  consideration  of  a  subject,  namely,  the  general  philosophical 
and  theological  bearings  of  this  theory,  which  does  not,  we  en¬ 
deavored  to  show,  belong  properly  to  the  discussion,  and  ought 
to  be  kept  in  abeyance,  so  long,  at  least,  as  the  laws  of  exper¬ 
imental  philosophy  are  observed  in  the  conduct  of  the  inquiry. 
One  of  the  first  questions  asked  in  past  times  in  regard  to  phys¬ 
ical  hypotheses,  which  have  now  become  established  theories 
or  doctrines  of  science,  was,  if  they  were  orthodox,  or  at 
least  theistic;  and  the  negative  decision  of  this  question  by 
what  was  deemed  competent  authority  determined  temporarily 
and  in  a  measure  the  fate  of  the  hypothesis  and  the  standing 
of  those  who  held  to  it.  It  was  to  be  hoped  that,  in  the  light 
of  such  a  history,  this  discussion  could  be  spared  the  question, 
at  least  till  the  hypothesis  could  be  fairly  tried,  when,  if  it 
should  be  found  wanting  in  scientific  validity,  its  banishment 
to  the  limbo  of  exploded  errors  might,  without  much  harm,  be 
changed  to  a  severer  sentence ;  and,  if  it  should  withstand  the 
tests  of  purely  scientific  criticism,  the  same  means  of  reconcil¬ 
ing  it  to  orthodoxy  would  doubtless  be  found  as  in  the  case  of 
older  physical  hypotheses.  Mr.  Mivart  himself  claimed  and 
argued  a  similar  exemption  for  the  general  theory  of  evolution, 
or  rather  attempted  the  later  office  of  reconciliation,  or  the  af¬ 
fording  of  proofs  of  its  conformity  to  the  most  venerable  and 
authoritative  decisions  of  orthodoxy.  But  he  appeared  unwill¬ 
ing  to  allow  either  such  an  exemption,  or  the  possibility  of  an 
accordance  with  orthodoxy,  to  the  theory  of  natural  selection, 
for  he  more  than  once  quoted  and  applied  to  the  discussion  of 
this  theory  the  saying  and  supposed  opinions  of  an  heretical 
heathen  philosopher,  Democritus. 

In  his  reply  to  our  criticisms,*  he  wonders  who  could  have 
so  misled  us  as  to  make  us  suppose  that  his  was  a  “theological 
education”  and  a  “schooling  against  Democritus”;  the  fact 
being  just  the  reverse  of  this,  his  education  being  in  that  phi- 

*  See  the  number  of  the  North  American  Review  for  April,  1872.  Mr.  Mivart  has. 
reprinted  his  reply,  without  notice  of  the  present  essay,  in  his  volume  entitled,  “Les«- 
sons  from  Nature,”  London,  1876. 


E VOL UTION  BY  NA  TURAL  SELECTION. 


17  3 


losophy  of  “nescience,”  out  of  the  evils  and  fallacies  of  which 
he  had  at  length  struggled.  Clearly  we  were  misled  by  the 
author  himself.  Our  error,  slight  except  as  a  biographical  one, 
would  have  been  amended  if  we  had  referred  the  character  of 
his  criticism  to  his  theological  studies.  This  would  have  left 
the  period  in  his  life  in  which  he  acquired  his  mode  of  thought 
and  discussion  as  undetermined,  as  it  was  unimportant  to  the 
point  of  our  criticism;  since,  through  the  influence  of  these 
studies,  or  similar  dialectical  pursuits,  his  unquestionable  abili¬ 
ties  appeared  to  us  to  have  been  developed,  and,  as  we  believe, 
misapplied.  It  was  the  bringing  in  of  “  the  fortuitous  concourse 
of  atoms,”  and  “blind  chance,”  “accidents,”  and  “hap-hazard 
results,”  in  a  discussion  with  which  they  had  no  more  to  do, 
and  no  less,  than  they  have  to  do  with  geology,  meteorology, 
politics,  philosophical  history,  or  political  economy.  It  was 
this  irrelevancy  in  his  criticism  which  we  regarded  as  oblivious 
of  the  age  in  which  we  live  and  for  which  he  wrote, — the  age 
of  experimental  philosophy.  Mr.  Mivart  thinks  he  is  clear  of 
all  blame  for  speaking  of  the  theory  of  natural  selection  as  lia¬ 
ble  “to  lead  men  to  regard  the  present  organic  world  as 
formed,  so  to  speak,  accidentally ,  beautiful  and  wonderful  as  is 
confessedly  the  hap-hazard  result,”  since  he  qualified  the  word 
“accidentally”  by  the  phrase  “so  to  speak.”  The  real  fault 
was  in  speaking  so  at  all. 

Accidents  in  the  ordinary  every-day  sense  are  causes  in 
every  concrete  course  of  events, — in  the  weather,  in  history,  in 
politics,  in  the  market,  —  and  no  theory  of  these  events  can 
leave  them  out.  Explanation  of  the  events  consists  in  show¬ 
ing  how  they  will  result,  or  have  resulted,  through  certain  fixed 
principles  or  laws  of  action  from  the  occasions  or  opportunities, 
which  such  accidents  present.  Given  the  state  of  the  atmos¬ 
phere  over  a  large  district  in  respect  to  temperature,  moisture, 
pressure,  and  motion, — none  of  which  could  have  been  antici¬ 
pated  without  similar  data  for  a  short  time  before,  all  in  fact 
being  accidents, — and  the  physical  principles  of  meteorology 
might  enable  us  to  explain  the  weather  that  immediately  fol¬ 
lows.  So  with  the  events  of  history,  etc.  In  no  other  sense 
are  accidents  supposed  as  causes  in  the  theory  of  natural  selec- ' 


*74 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


tion.  Accidental  variations  and  surrounding  conditions  of 
existence,  and  the  previous  condition  of  the  organic  world, 
(none  of  which  could  have  been  anticipated  from  anything  vve 
actually  know,  all  in  fact  being  “accidents”) — these  are  the 
causes  which  present  the  occasions  or  opportunities  through 
which  principles  of  utility  and  advantage  are  brought  to  bear 
in  changing  structures  and  habits,  and  improving  their  adap¬ 
tations.  If  this  is  like  the  philosophy  of  Democritus,  or  any 
other  excommunicated  philosopher  of  antiquity,  and  is,  there¬ 
fore,  to  be  condemned  for  the  heresy,  then  all  the  sciences 
with  which  we  have  compared  it,  and  many  others,  the  con¬ 
quests  of  human  intelligence,  must  share  the  condemnation. 

We  dwelt  in  our  review,  perhaps  unnecessarily,  on  the  fact 
that  accidents  in  this  sense,  and  in  the  theory  of  natural  selec¬ 
tion,  as  well  as  elsewhere,  are  relative  to  our  knowledge  of 
causes;  that  the  same  event,  like  an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  might 
be  an  accident  to  one  mind,  and  an  anticipated  event  to  an¬ 
other.  We  did  so  because  we  could  not  understand  otherwise 
why  our  author  should  single  out  the  theory  of  natural  selection 
from  analogous  theories  and  sciences  for  a  special  criticism  of 
this  sort;  or  except  on  the  idea  that  the  accidents  in  natural 
selection  were  supposed  by  him  to  be  exceptional,  and  of  the 
type  which  Democritus  is  reputed  to  have  put  in  the  place  of 
intelligent  design,  or  on  the  throne  of  Nous.  We  did  not,  as 
Mr.  Mivart  imagines,  think  him  “ignorant  that  the  various 
phenomena  which  we  observe  in  nature  have  their  respective 
phenomenal  antecedents,”  nor  suppose  that  he  “held  the 
opinion  that  phenomena  of  variation,  etc.,  are  not  determined 
by  definite,  invariable,  physical  antecedents.”  We  only 
thought  that,  knowing  better, — knowing  that  “natural  selec¬ 
tion,”  like  every  other  physical  theory,  dealt  with  physical 
causes  and  their  laws, — he  was  unjust  and  inconsistent  in  con¬ 
demning  the  employment  of  it,  as  a  leading  or  prominent  cause, 
in  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  the  organic  world,  in  the 
manner  in  which  he  did;  except  on  the  hypothesis,  which  we 
repudiated  in  behalf  of  experimental  philosophy  but  without 
positively  attributing  it  to  him, — the  hypothesis  of  absolute 
accidents.  It  was  inconsistency  and  irrelevancy  which  we 
meant  to  attribute  to  him. 


EVOLUTION  BY  NA  TURAL  SELECTION. 


*75 


That  he  supposed  absolute  accidents  to  be  meant  in  the  an* 
cient  atheistical  philosophy  appeared  from  a  passage  in  his  chap* 
ter  on  Theology  and  Evolution  (p.  276),  in  which  he  speaks 
of  the  kind  of  action  we  might  expect  in  physical  nature  from 
a  theistic  point  of  view,  as  an  action  “which  is  orderly,  which 
disaccords  with  the  action  of  blind  chance  and  with  the  ‘fortui¬ 
tous  concourse  of  atoms’  of  Democritus.”  But  in  his  reply  to 
us  he  repudiates  the  idea  that  this  old  philosophy  held  events 
to  be  accidental  in  the  strict  sense;  and  he  further  says  of  us 
that  we  “know  very  well  that  Democritus  and  Empedocles 
and  their  school  no  more  held  phenomena  to  be  undetermined 
or  un preceded  by  other  phenomena  than  do  their  successors  at 
the  present  day.”  We  are  far  from  being  so  well  informed,  or 
willing  to  accept  this  as  a  statement  of  our  views.  For,  in  the 
first  place,  the  terms  “undetermined”  and  “unpreceded”  are 
not  synonymous.  Moreover,  so  far  as  phenomena  are  deter¬ 
mined,  they  are  “orderly,”  “harmonize  with  man’s  reason” 
(p.  275),  though  in  their  complexity  they  may  be  quite  beyond 
the  power  of  any  man’s  imagination  to  represent  or  disen¬ 
tangle;  and,  as  our  author  has  said,  they  are  what  we  might 
expect  “  from  a  theistic  point  of  view.” 

Whether  Democritus  believed  in  absolute  accidents  or  not 
we  do  not  know.  Little  is  really  known  of  his  opinions  in  this 
respect.  The  question  has  been  disputed,  but  not  decided. 
All  his  works  are  lost,  except  a  few  quoted  sentences  and  max¬ 
ims.  He  is  in  a  peculiarly  exposed  condition  for  an  attack  from 
any  one  disposed  to  be  his  opponent.  The  words  ascribed  to 
him  are  unprotected  by  contexts,  or  by  the  scruples  an  oppo¬ 
nent  might  feel  about  their  meaning  were  he  assigning  to  him 
his  place  in  the  history  of  speculation.  It  is  very  likely  that 
he  did  not  hold  to  absolute  accidents  as  occurring  in  the 
course  of  nature;  though  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  he  was 
so  thoroughly  convinced  as  his  “successors  of  the  present 
day”  are  of  the  universality  of  the  “law  of  causation,”  or  that 
every  event  must  have  determinant  antecedents.  The  concep¬ 
tion  of  cause,  as  based  by  experimental  science  on  the  ele¬ 
mentary  invariable  orders  of  phenomenal  successions,  is,  even 
at  the  present  day,  altogether  too  precise  and  abstract  for  the 


17  6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


apprehension  of  a  mind  untrained  by  scientific  studies.  How 
much  more  so  must  it  have  been  when  among  the  old  Ionian 
philosophers  the  first  crude  conceptions  of  science  wrere  being 
fashioned  by  attempts  at  discovering  the  physical  bond  of 
union  and  the  inchoate  form  of  nature,  regarded  as  a  universe. 
It  is  an  anachronism  to  speak  of  these  philosophers  as  mate¬ 
rialists  and  atheists,  since  the  distinctions  and  questions  which 
could  make  such  a  classification  intelligible  had  not  yet  been 
proposed.  And  it  is  equally  an  anachronism  to  attribute 
even  to  later  thinkers,  like  Democritus,  such  a  conception  of 
physical  causation  as  only  the  latest  and  maturest  products  of 
scientific  thought  have  rendered  definite. 

There  can  be  no  antithesis  in  the  problem  of  the  beginning 
of  the  world  between  accident  and  law,  that  is,  between  accident 
and  the  orderly  movements  which  imply  determinant  antece¬ 
dents.  The  real  antithesis  is  between  accident  and  miracle, 
that  is,  between  accident  and  the  extraordinary  action  of  pre¬ 
existent  designing  intelligence;  and  in  this  relation  Accident 
can  only  have  an  absolute  meaning,  equivalent  in  fact  to  Des¬ 
tiny  or  Fate,  when  unintelligible.  Unintelligible  Destiny  or 
“blind  chance”  is  directly  opposed  to  the  intelligible  Destiny 
which  is  the  principle  of  “law”  in  nature;  though  these  have 
often  been  confounded  as  equally  fatalistic  and  atheistical.  Mr. 
Mivart,  however,  does  not  confound  them;  for  he  has  said  that 
the  latter  is  what  we  might  expect  from  a  theistic  point  of  view. 
It  is  altogether  likely,  however,  that  the  Democritus  to  whom  the 
former  meaning  could  be  attributed  as  a  characteristic  one  is 
not  the  real  thinker,  but  is  a  myth;  or  is  rather  the  orthodox 
lay-figure  of  atheism  of  the  theological  studio. 

The  reputation  for  atheism  which  the  real  Democritus  doubt¬ 
less  had  may  have  come  from  a  cause  which  has  often  pro¬ 
duced  it  in  the  history  of  physical  science.  He  invented  a 
theory  of  atoms  with  which  he  attempted  physical  explanations 
quite  in  advance  of  previous  speculations.  And  the  invention 
of  physical  hypotheses  has  often  been  regarded  as  an  invasion 
of  the  province  and  jurisdiction  of  divine  power  and  a  first 
cause.  For  men  rarely  allow  the  explanation  of  any  impor¬ 
tant  effect  in  nature  to  remain  an  open  question.  If  observed 


EVOL  UTION  B  Y  NA  TUBA  L  SELECTION. 


177 


or  inferred  physical  causes  do  not  suffice,  invisible  or  even 
spiritual  ones  are  invented;  and  thus  the  ground  is  preoccu¬ 
pied,  and  closed  against  the  inquiries  of  the  physical  phi¬ 
losopher.  It  is  probably  the  general  direction  or  tendency  of 
these  inquiries,  rather  than  any  positive  positions  or  results  at 
which  they  may  arrive,  which  puts  the  physical  philosopher  in 
an  apparently  irreligious  attitude.  For  in  following  out  the 
consequences  of  physical  hypotheses  into  the  details  of  natural 
phenomena,  reasoning  from  supposed  causes  to  their  effects,  his 
interests  and  his  modes  of  thought  are  the  reverse  of  those  of 
mankind  in  general,  and  of  the  religious  mind.  He  appears  to 
turn  his  back  on  divinity,  and  though  seeking  to  approach 
nearer  the  first  cause,  or  the  total  order  of  nature,  his  aspect  of 
looking  downward  from  a  proximate  principle  through  a  nat¬ 
ural  order  appears  to  the  popular  view  to  be  darkened  by  a 
sombre  shadow.  The  theory  of  universal  gravitation  was  con¬ 
demned  on  this  account  for  impiety  by  even  so  liberal  and  en¬ 
lightened  a  thinker  as  Leibnitz.  This  seems  very  strange  to  us 
now,  since  the  law  of  gravitation  is  almost  as  familiar  as  fire, 
or  even  gravity  itself.  When  in  ancient  times  any  one  had 
burned  his  fingers,  or  been  bruised  by  a  fall,  one  did  not,  except 
perhaps  in  early  childhood,  attribute  the  harm  to  a  person,  a 
spirit,  or  a  god,  but  to  the  qualities  of  fire  or  gravity;  yet  the 
sounds  of  the  thunder  were  still  referred  directly  to  Zeus. 
We  all  remember  how  in  the  “Clouds”  of  Aristophanes  the 
comic  poet  puts  impiety  in  the  mouth  of  Socrates,  or  the  doc¬ 
trine  that  Zeus  does  not  exist,  and  that  it  is  ethereal  Vortex, 
reigning  in  his  stead,  which  drives  the  clouds  and  makes  them 
rain  and  thunder.  Such  a  view  of  physical  inquiries  is  not 
confined  to  comic  poets  or  their  audiences.  The  meteorolog¬ 
ical  sophists  of  that  day  were  in  very  much  the  same  position 
as  the  Darwinian  evolutionists  of  the  present  time. 

However  important  it  may  be  to  bear  these  considerations  in 
mind,  there  is,  as  we  have  said,  no  more  occasion  to  do  so  with 
reference  to  the  theory  of  natural  selection  than  with  reference 
to  many  other  analogous  theories,  not  only  in  physical  science, 
like  those  of  meteorology  and  geology  (including  the  theory  of 
evolution),  but  also  in  sociological  science,  like  theories  of  po- 


178 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS, 


litical  economy,  and  those  theories  of  history  which  explain 
the  growth  of  institutions,  governments,  and  national  charac¬ 
teristics.  The  comparison  of  the  continuous  order  in  time  of 
the  organic  world  and  its  total  aspect  at  any  period,  to  the  pro¬ 
gressive  changes  and  the  particular  aspect  at  any  time  of  the 
weather,  will,  doubtless,  strike  many  minds  as  inapt,  since  the 
latter  phenomena  are  the  type  to  us  of  indetermination  and 
chance,  while  the  former  present  to  us  the  most  conspicuous 
evidences  of  orderly  determination  and  design.  This  con¬ 
trast,  though  conspicuous,  is,  nevertheless,  not  essential  to  the 
contrasted  orders  themselves.  The  movements  in  one. are  al¬ 
most  infinitely  slower  than  in  the  other.  We  see  a  single  phase 
and  certain  orderly  details  in  one.  We  see  only  confused  and 
rapid  combinations  and  successions  in  the  other.  One  is  seen 
in  fine,  the  other  in  gross  form.  But  looked  at  from  the  same 
point  of  view,  regarding  each  as  an  ensemble  of  details  in  time 
and  space,  they  are  equally  without  definite  order  or  intelligible 
plan;  “beautiful  and  wonderful  as  is,”  according  to  Mr. 
Mivart,  “the  hap-hazard  result.”  It  is  in  the  intimate  and 
comparatively  minute  parts  of  the  organic  world  in  individual 
structures  or  organisms  that  the  beautiful  and  wonderful  order 
is  seen.  When  we  look  at  great  groups,  like  the  floras  and 
faunas  of  various  regions,  or  at  past  geological  groupings, — the 
shifting  clouds,  as  it  were,  of  organic  life, — this  order  disap¬ 
pears  or  is  hidden  for  the  most  part.  There  remains  enough 
of  apparent  order  to  indicate  continuity  in  time  and  space,  but 
hardly  anything  more.  Perfectly  as  the  individual  organism 
may  exhibit  adaptations  or  the  applications  of  principles  of 
utility,  there  is  no  definite  clew  in  it  to  the  cause  of  the  partic¬ 
ular  combination  of  uses  which  it  embodies,  or  to  its  exist¬ 
ence  in  a  particular  region,  or  at  a  particular  period  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  world,  or  to  its  co-existence  with  many  other  quite 
independent  particular  forms.  But  in  precise  analogy  with 
what  is  conspicuously  regular  and  indicative  of  simple  laws  in 
the  organic  world,  correspond  the  intimate  elementary  changes 
of  the  atmosphere,  some  of  which,  like  the  fall  and  even  the 
formation  of  rain  and  snow,  the  development  and  disappear¬ 
ance  of  clouds,  are  almost  as  simple  exhibitions  of  natural 


EVOLUTION  BY  NA  TUBAL  SELECTION. 


175 


laws  as  experiments  in  the  laboratory.  What,  even  in  the 
laboratory,  can  exceed  the  beauty,  simplicity,  and  complete¬ 
ness  of  that  exemplification  of  definite  physical  laws  which 
the  fall  of  dew  on  clear,  calm  nights  demonstrates  ?  More¬ 
over,  there  are  in  the  successions  of  changes  in  the  weather 
sufficient  traces  of  order  to  indicate  a  continuity  in  space  and 
time  corresponding  to  the  geographical  distributions  and  geo¬ 
logical  successions  of  the  organic  world.  The  elementary  or¬ 
ders,  which  exhibit  ultimate  physical  laws  in  simple  isolation, 
are,  in  their  aggregate  and  complex  combination,  the  causes  of 

the  successions  of  changes  in  the  weather  and  the  source  of 

- 

whatever  traces  of  order  appear  in  them,  and  are  thus  analo¬ 
gous  to  what  the  theory  of  natural  selection  supposes  in  the 
organic  world,  namely,  that  the  adaptations,  or  the  exhibitions 
of  simple  principles  of  utility  in  structures,  are  in  their  aggre¬ 
gate  and  complex  combinations  the  causes  of  successive  and 
continuous  changes  in  forms  of  life. 

Far  more  important,  however,  than  such  analogies  in  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  is  the  clear  understanding  of  what  the 
theory  of  natural  selection  undertakes  to  explain,  and  what 
is  the  precise  and  essential  nature  of  its  supposed  action. 
There  appears  to  be  much  confusion  on  this  subject,  arising 
probably  from  the  influence  of  preconceived  opinions  concern¬ 
ing  the  nature  both  of  the  matters  explained  and  the  mode  of 
explanation,  or,  in  other  words,  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
changes  which  take  place  in  species  and  the  relations  of  them 
to  this  cause.  These  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  very  simple 
matters  for  conception,  and  difficult  only  in  the  evidences  and 
the  adequacy  of  the  explanation.  Such  appeared,  and  still 
appears,  to  be  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Mivart. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  make  a  difficult  theory  plain  is 
the  negative  one  of  correcting  the  misconceptions  of  it  as  they 
arise.  This  is  what  we  attempted  in  our  former  review  with 
reference  to  the  character  of  the  variations  from  which  nature 
normally  and  for  the  most  part  selects.  But  new  difficulties 
have  emerged  in  Mr.  Mivart’s  later  writings  which  deserve  con¬ 
sideration.  In  his  answer  to  Professor  Huxley,  in  the  January 
number  of  the  “Contemporary  Review”  (p.  170),  he  says  of 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


180 

the  theory  of  natural  selection,  “That  the  benefit  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  in  the  struggle  for  life  was  announced  as  the  one  deter¬ 
mining  agent,  fixing  slight  beneficial  variations  into  enduring 
characters,”  for  which  he  thinks  it  quite  incompetent.  And 
again,  in  reply  to  us  (p.  453),  he  speaks  of  “  The  origin,  not, 
of  course,  of  slight  variations,  but  of  the  fixing  of  these  in 
definite  lines  and  grooves”;  and  this  origin,  he  believes,  can¬ 
not  be  natural  selection.  And  we  believe  that  his  conclusions 
are  right!  That  is,  if  the  more  obvious  meaning  of  these 
expressions  are  their  real  ones.  They  appear  to  mean  that 
natural  selection  will  not  account  for  the  unvarying  continu¬ 
ance  in  succeeding  generations  of  simple  changes  made  acci¬ 
dentally  in  individual  structures  (whether  the  change  be  large 
or  small),  or  will  not  account  for  the  direct  conversion  of  a 
simple  change  in  a  parent  into  a  permanent  alteration  of  its 
offspring.  Such  is  the  apparent  meaning  of  these  expressions, 
but  they  might  possibly  be  taken  as  loose  expressions  of  the 
opinion  that  this  cause  will  not  account  for  permanent  changes 
in  the  average  characters,  or  mid-points,  about  which  variations 
oscillate ;  and,  in  this  case,  we  believe  that  he  is  wrong.  This 
permanency  must  not  be  understood,  however,  as  meaning 
that  changes  cease,  but  only  that  they  are  not  reversed.  The 
same  cause,  natural  selection,  prevents  such  reversion,  on 
the  whole,  and  except  in  individual  cases  which  it  extermi¬ 
nates. 

The  first  and  obviously  intended  meaning  of  these  expres¬ 
sions  has  let  in  light  upon  the  author’s  own  theory  and  his  gen¬ 
eral  difficulty  about  the  theory  of  natural  selection,  which  we 
did  not  have  before.  They  show  how  fundamentally  the  mat¬ 
ter  has  been  misconceived,  either  by  him  or  by  us.  That  we 
did  not  more  fully  perceive  this  fundamental  difference  doubt¬ 
less  arose  from  a  tacit  assumption  of  the  principle  of  “specific 
stability  ”  in  his  earlier  criticisms,  which  was  explicitly  treated 
of  in  a  later  chapter  and  as  a  subordinate  topic.  This,  as  we 
shall  find,  is  the  source  of  the  most  serious  misunderstanding 
We  were  not  aware  that  any  one  supposed  that  particular  varia¬ 
tions  ever  became  fixed  and  heritable  changes  in  the  characters 
of  organisms  by  the  direct  agency  of  natural  selection,  or,  in- 


E  VOL  UTION  BY  NA  TURAL  SELECTION.  x 8  T 

deed,  by  any  other  known  cause.  The  proper  effect  of  this 
cause  is  not  to  fix  variations,  though  it  must  determine  their 
averages  and  limit  their  range ,  and  must  act  directly  to  in¬ 
crease  the  useful  ones  and  diminish  the  injurious;  or  rather 
to  permit  the  one  and  forbid  the  other,  and  when  these  are 
directly  opposed  to  each  other,  it  must  act  to  shift  the  aver 
age  or  normal  character,  instead  of  fixing  it.  Variation 
as  a  constant  and  normal  phenomenon  of  organization,  ex¬ 
hibited  chiefly  in  the  ranges  of  individual  differences,  is,  as 
it  were,  the  agitation  or  irregular  oscillation  that  keeps  the 
characters  of  species  from  getting  too  closely  fixed  in  “definite 
lines  and  grooves,”  through  the  too  rigid  inheritance  of  ances¬ 
tral  traits ;  or  it  is  a  principle  of  alertness  that  keeps  them  ever 
ready  for  movement  and  change  in  conformity  to  changing  con¬ 
ditions  of  existence.  What  fixes  species  (when  they  are  fixed) 
is  the  continuance  of  the  same  advantages  in  their  structures 
and  habits,  or  the  same  conditions  for  the  action  of  selection, 
together  with  the  force  of  long-continued  inheritance. 

This,  though  almost  trite  from  frequent  repetition,  appears  a 
very  difficult  conception  for  many  minds,  probably  on  account 
of  their  retaining  the  old  stand-point  of  philosophy.  It  would 
appear  that  Mr.  Mivart  is  really  speaking  of  the  fixed  species  of 
the  old  and  still  prevalent  philosophy,  or  about  real  species,  as 
they  are  commonly  called.  Natural  selection  cannot,  of  course, 
account  for  these  figments.  Their  true  explanation  is  in  the  fact 
that  naturalists  formerly  assumed,  without  proper  evidence,  that 
a  change  too  slow  for  them  to  perceive  directly  could  not  exist, 
and  that  characters  widely  prevalent  and  so  far  advanced  as  to 
become  permanently  adapted  to  very  general  and  unchanging 
conditions  of  existence,  like  vertebral  and  articulate  structures, 
the  numbers  and  positions  of  the  organs  of  locomotion  in  vari¬ 
ous  animals,  the  whorl  and  the  spiral  arrangement  of  leaves 
in  plants,  and  similar  homological  resemblances,  could  never 
have  been  vacillating  and  uncertain  ones.  It  was  not  many 
years  ago  that  a  distinguished  writer  in  criticising  the  views  of 
Lamarck  affirmed  that  “the  majority  of  naturalists  agree  with 
Linnaeus  in  supposing  that  all  the  individuals  propagated  from 
one  stock  have  certain  distinguishing  characters  in  common, 


182 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


which  never  vary,  and  which  have  remained  the  same  since  the 
creation  of  each  species.”  The  influence  of  this  opinion  still  re¬ 
mains,  even  with  naturalists  who  would  hesitate  to  assert  cate¬ 
gorically  the  opinion  itself.  This  comes,  doubtless,  from  the 
fact  that  long-prevalent  doctrines  often  get  stamped  into  the 
very  meanings  of  words,  and  thus  acquire  the  character  of 
axioms.  The  word  “species”  became  synonymous  with  real 
or  fixed  species,  or  these  adjectives  became  pleonastic.  And 
this  was  from  the  mere  force  of  repetition,  and  without  valid 
foundation  in  fact,  or  confirmation  from  proper  inductive  evi¬ 
dence. 

Natural  selection  does  not,  of  course,  account  for  a  fixity 
that  does  not  exist,  but  only  for  the  adaptations  and  the  diver¬ 
sities  in  species,  which  may  or  may  not  be  changing  at  any 
time.  They  are  fixed  only  as  the  “fixed”  stars  are  fixed,  of 
which  very  many  are  now  known  to  be  slowly  moving.  Their 
fixity,  when  they  are  fixed,  is  temporary  and  through  the  acci¬ 
dent  of  unchanging  external  conditions.  Such  is  at  least  the  as¬ 
sumption  of  the  theory  of  natural  selection.  Mr.  Mivart’s  the¬ 
ory  seems  to  assume,  on  the  other  hand,  that  unless  a  species 
or  a  character  is  tied  to  something  it  will  run  away ;  that  there 
is  a  necessity  for  some  internal  bond  to  hold  it,  at  least  tempo¬ 
rarily,  or  so  long  as  it  remains  the  same  species.  He  is  enti¬ 
tled,  it  is  true,  to  challenge  the  theory  of  natural  selection  for 
proofs  of  its  assumption,  that  “fixity”  is  not  an  essential  feature 
of  natural  species ;  for,  in  fact,  so  far  as  direct  evidence  is  con¬ 
cerned,  this  is  an  open  question.  Its  decision  must  depend 
chiefly  on  the  preponderance  of  indirect  and.  probable  evi¬ 
dences  in  the  interpretation  of  the  “  geological  record,”  a  sub¬ 
ject  to  which  much  space  is  devoted,  in  accordance  with  its 
importance,  in  the  “  Origin  of  Species.”  Technical  questions 
in  the  classification  and  description  of  species  afford  other  evi¬ 
dences,  and  it  is  asserted  by  naturalists  that  a  very  large  num¬ 
ber  of  specimens,  say  ten  thousand,  is  sufficient,  in  some  de¬ 
partments  of  natural  history,  to  break  down  any  definition  or 
discrimination  even  of  living  species.  Other  evidences  are 
afforded  by  the  phenomena  of  variation  under  domestication. 
Mr.  Mivart  had  the  right,  and  may  still  have  it,  to  resist  all 


EVOLUTION  BY  NA  TURAL  SELECTION. 


lS3 


this  evidence,  as  not  conclusive ;  but  he  is  not  entitled  to  call 
upon  the  theory  of  natural  selection  for  an  explanation  of  a 
feature  in  organic  structures  which  the  theory  denies  in  its  ver) 
elements,  the  fixity  of  species.  This  is  what  he  has  done, — 
implicitly,  as  it  now  appears,  in  his  book,  and  explicitly  in  his 
later  writings. 

The  question  of  zoological  philosophy,  “Whether  species 
have  a  real  existence  in  nature,”  in  the  decision  of  which  nat¬ 
uralists  have  so  generally  agreed  with  Linnaeus,  refers  directly 
and  explicitly  to  this  question  or  the  fixity  of  essential  charac¬ 
ters,  and  to  the  assumption  that  species  must  remain  unaltered 
.in  these  respects  so  long  as  they  continue  to  exist,  or  until  they 
give  birth  to  new  species ;  or,  as  was  formerly  believed,  give 
place  in  perishing  to  new  independent  creations.  The  distinc¬ 
tion  involved  in  this  question  in  the  word  real  should  not  be 
confounded,  as  it  might  easily  be,  with  the  distinction  in  Logic 
of  “real  kinds”  from  other  class-names.  Logic  recognizes  a 
principal  division  in  class-names,  according  as  these  are  the 
names  of  objects  which  agree  with  each  other  and  differ  from 
other  objects  in  a  very  large  and  indefinite  number  of  particulars 
or  attributes,  or  are  the  names  of  objects  which  agree  only  in  a 
few  and  a  definite  number  of  attributes.  The  former  are  the 
names  of  “real  kinds,”  and  include  the  names  of  natural  species, 
as  man,  horse,  etc.,  and  of  natural  genera,  as  whale,  oak,  etc. 
These  classes  are  “real  kinds,”  not  because  the  innumerable 
particulars  in  which  the  individual  members  of  them  agree  with 
each  other  and  differ  from  the  members  of  other  classes,  are 
themselves  fixed  or  invariable  in  time,  but  because  this  sort  of 
agreement  and  difference  is  fixed  or  continues  to  appear.  An 
individual  hipparion  resembled  its  immediate  parents  and  the 
other  offspring  of  them  as  closely  as,  or,  at  least,  in  the  same  in¬ 
timate  manner  in  which  one  horse  resembles  another,  namely, 
in  innumerable  details.  But  this  is  not  opposed  to  the  concep¬ 
tion  that  the  horse  is  descended  from  the  hipparion  by  insensi¬ 
ble  steps  of  gradation  or  continuously.  For  examples  of  names 
that  are  not  the  names  of  “real  kinds,”  we  may  instance  such  as 
denominate  objects  that  are  an  inch  in  length,  or  in  breadth,  or 
are  colored  black,  or  are  square,  or  (combining  these  particu- 


184 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


lars)  that  are  as  black  square  inches.  These  objects  may  be 
made  of  paper,  or  wood,  or  ivory,  or  differ  in  all  other  respects 
except  the  enumerated  and  definite  particulars.  They  are  not 
“real”  or  natural  “kinds,”  but  factitious  ones. 

The  confusion  which,  as  we  have  said,  might  arise  between 
the  “real  kinds”  of  Logic,  and  the  real  species  of  biological 
speculation,  would  depend  on  a  vagueness  in  the  significance 
of  the  word  “  real,”  which  in  common  usage  combines  in  un¬ 
certain  proportions  two  elementary  and  more  precise  ideas, 
that  of  fixedness  and  that  of  breadth  of  relationship.  Both 
these  marks  of  reality  are  applied  habitually  as  tests  of  it. 
Thus  if  an  object  attests  its  existence  to  several  of  my  senses, 
is  seen,  heard,  touched,  and  is  varied  in  its  relations  to  these 
senses,  and  moreover  is. similarly  related  to  the  senses  of  an¬ 
other  person,  as  evinced  by  his  testimony,  then  I  know  that 
the  object  is  real,  and  not  a  mere  hallucination  or  invention  of 
my  fantasy;  though  it  may  disappear  immediately  afterwards 
in  an  unexplained  manner,  or  be  removed  by  some  unknown 
but  supposable  agency.  Here  the  judgment  of  reality  de¬ 
pends  on  breadth  of  relationship  to  my  experience  and  sources 
of  knowledge.  Or  again  I  may  only  see  the  object,  and  con¬ 
sult  no  other  eyes  than  my  own;  but  seeing  it  often,  day  after 
day,  in  the  same  place,  I  shall  judge  it  to  be  areal  object,  pro¬ 
vided  its  existence  is  conformable  to  the  general  possibilities  of 
experience,  or  to  the  test  of  “  breadth.”  Here  the  test  of  real¬ 
ity  is  “fixity”  or  continuance  in  time.  That  natural  species 
are  real  in  one  of  these  senses,  that  individuals  of  a  species 
are  alike  in  an  indefinite  number  of  particulars,  and  resemble 
each  other  intimately,  is  unquestionable  as  a  fact,  and  is  not 
an  invention  of  the  understanding  or  classifying  faculty,  and  is 
moreover  the  direct  natural  consequence  of  the  principles  of 
inheritance.  In  this  sense  species  are  equivalent  to  large  nat¬ 
ural  stocks  or  races  existing  for  a  limited  but  indeterminate 
number  of  generations.  That  they  are  real  in  the  other  sense, 
or  fixed  in  time  absolutely  in  respect  to  any  of  the  particulars 
of  their  resemblance,  whether  these  are  essential  (that  is,  useful 
for  discrimination  and  classification)  or  are  not,  is  far  from  be¬ 
ing  the  axiom  it  has  seemed  to  be.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  highly 


1 

E VOL UTION  BY  NA  TUBA L  SELEC TION.  1 8 5 

improbable  that  they  are  so,  though  this  is  tacitly  assumed,  as 
we  have  seen,  in  criticisms  of  the  theory  of  natural  selection, 
and  in  the  significance  often  attached  to  the  word  “species”  in 
which  the  notions  of  fixedness  and  distinctiveness  have  coa¬ 
lesced.  It  is  true  that  without  this  significance  in  the  word 
“  species  ”  the  names  and  descriptions  of  organic  forms  could 
not  be  permanently  applicable.  No  system  of  classification, 
however  natural  or  real,  could  be  final.  Classification  would, 
indeed,  be  wholly  inadequate  as  a  representation  of  the  organic 
world  on  the  whole,  or  as  a  sketch  of  the  “plan  of  creation,” 
and  would  be  falsely  conceived  as  revealing  the  categories  and 
thoughts  of  creative  intelligence, — a  consequence  by  no  means 
welcome  to  the  devout  naturalist,  since  it  seems  to  degrade  the 
value  of  his  work.  But  this  may  bq  because  he  has  miscon¬ 
ceived  its  true  value,  and  dedicated  to  the  science  of  divinity 
what  is  really  the  rightful  inheritance  of  natural  or  physical 
science. 

If  instead  of  implicitly  assuming  the  principle  of  specific 
stability  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  his  book,  and  deferring 
the  explicit  consideration  of  it  to  a  later  chapter  and  as  a 
special  topic,  Mr.  Mivart  had  undertaken  the  establishment 
of  it  as  the  essential  basis  of  his  theory  (as  indeed  it  really 
is),  he  would  have  attacked  the  theory  of  natural  selection 
in  a  most  vital  point;  and  if  he  had  succeeded,  all  further 
criticism  of  the  theory  would  have  been  superfluous.  But  with¬ 
out  success  in  establishing  this  essential  basis,  he  leaves  his 
own  theory,  and  his  general  difficulties  concerning  the  theory 
of  natural  selection,  without  adequate  foundation.  The  impor¬ 
tance  of  natural  selection  in  the  evolution  of  organic  species 
(its  predominant  influence)  depends  entirely  on  the  truth  of  the 
opposite  assumption,  the  instability  of  species.  The  evidences 
for  and  against  this  position  are  various,  and  are  not  adequate¬ 
ly  considered  in  the  author’s  chapter  on  this  subject.  More¬ 
over,  some  of  the  evidences  may  be  expected  to  be  greatly 
affected  by  what  will  doubtless  be  the  discoveries  of  the  imme¬ 
diate  future.  Already  the  difficulties  of  discrimination  and 
classification  in  dealing  with  large  collections  have  become 
very  great  in  some  departments  of  natural  history,  and  even  in 


i86 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


paleontology  the  gradations  of  fossil  forms  are  becoming  finer 
and  finer  with  almost  every  new  discovery;  and  this  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  nothing  at  all  approaching  to  evidence  of 
continuity  can  rationally  be  expected  from  the  fragment¬ 
ary  geological  record.  To  this  evidence  must  be  added 
the  pi  enomena  of  variation  under  domestication.  The  ap¬ 
parent  limits  of  the  changes  which  can  be  effected  by  artificial 
selection  are  not,  as  they  have  been  thought,  proofs  of  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  “specific  stability,”  or  of  the  opinion  of  Linnaeus,  but 
only  indications  of  the  dependence  of  variation  on  physiolog¬ 
ical  causes,  and  on  laws  of  inheritance;  and  also  of  the  fact 
that  the  laws  of  variation  and  the  action  of  natural  selection 
are  not  suspended  by  domestication,  but  may  oppose  the  aims 
and  efforts  of  artificial  selection.  The  real  point  of  the  proof 
afforded  by  these  phenomena  is  that  permanent  changes  may 
be  effected  in  species  by  insensible  degrees.  They  are  perma¬ 
nent,  however,  only  in  the  sense  that  no  tendency  to  reversion 
will  restore  the  original  form,  except  by  the  action  of  similar 
causes. 

Against  the  conclusions  of  such  inductive  evidences  the 
vague  analogies  of  the  organic  to  the  inorganic  world  would 
avail  little  or  nothing,  even  if  they  were  true.  They  avail  little 
or  nothing,  consequently,  in  confirmation  of  them  in  being 
proved  false ;  as  we  showed  one  analogy  to  be  in  the  illustra¬ 
tion  given  by  our  author,  namely,  the  supposed  analogy  of 
specific  characters  in  crystals  to  those  of  organisms ;  and  his 
inference  of  abrupt  changes  in  organic  species,  corresponding 
by  this  analogy  to  changes  in  the  mode  or  species  of  crystalli¬ 
zation,  which  the  same  substance  undergoes  in  some  cases  with 
a  change  of  surrounding  conditions,  such  as  certain  other  sub¬ 
stances  may  introduce  by  their  presence.  A  complete  illustra¬ 
tion  of  the  chemical  phenomenon  is  afforded  by  the  crystals  of 
sulphur.  Crystals  produced  in  the  wet  way,  or  from  solution 
in  the  bisulphide  of  carbon,  are  of  a  species  entirely  distinct 
from  those  formed  in  the  dry  way?  or  from  the  fused  mineral ; 
and  there  are  many  other  cases  of  these  phenomena  of  dimor¬ 
phism  and  polymorphism ,  as  they  are  called.  We  recur  to 
this  topic,  not  on  account  of  its  importance  to  the  discussion, 


E  VOL  UTION  B  Y  NA  TURA L  SELL  C T/OAT.  z  8  y 

but  because  Mr.  Mivart  accuses  us  of  changing  a  quotation 
from  Mr.  J.  J.  Murphy,  so  that  he  “is  unlucky  enough  to  be 
blamed  for  what  he  never  said,  or  apparently  thought  of  say¬ 
ing.”  We  have  looked  with  true  solicitude  for  the  evidences 
of  the  truth  of  this  charge,  and  find  them  to  be  as  follows : 
We  transcribed  from  Mr.  Mivart’s  book  these  sentences,  as 
quoted  by  him  (p.  185),  from  Mr.  Murphy:  “It  needs  no 
proof  that  in  the  case  of  spheres  and  crystals,  the  forms  and 
the  structures  are  the  effect,  and  not  the  cause,  of  the  formative 
principle.?.  Attraction,  whether  gravitative  or  capillary,  pro¬ 
duces  the  spherical  form;  the  spherical  form  does  not  produce 
attraction.  And  crystalline  polarities  produce  crystalline  struct¬ 
ure  and  form ;  crystalline  structure  and  form  do  not  produce 
crystalline  polarities.”  The  superfluous  letter  and  words,  which 
we  have  put  in  italics,  were  omitted  in  the  printing,  we  do  not 
know  how,  but  it  looks  like  an  unwarrantable  attempt  in  a 
final  revision  of  proofs  to  improve  the  English  of  the  quotation. 
Certainly  the  changes  were  of  no  advantage  to  our  criticism, 
especially  as  they  only  have  the  effect  to  render  the  antithesis, 
which  was  the  object  of  the  criticism,  slightly  weaker.  It  is 
impossible  to  see  how  these  changes  have  exposed  Mr.  Murphy 
to  undeserved  censure.  We  blamed  him  and  Mr.  Mivart,  not 
for  the  use  of  abstractions  as  causes, — a  use,  which,  as  Mr. 
Mivart  says,  we  ourselves  make  whenever  it  is  convenient,  but 
for  asserting  the  antithesis  of  cause  and  effect  between  abstrac¬ 
tions  both  of  which  are  descriptive  of  effects,  namely,  the 
character  of  the  attractions,  gravitative  and  capillary,  which 
produce  spherical  forms  vs.  the  spherical  form  itself ;  and  the 
polar  character  of  the  forces  that  produce  crystals  vs.  the  crys¬ 
talline  form  and  structure.  Each  of  these  effects  (both  in  the 
case  of  the  sphere  and  of  the  crystal)  is  doubtless  a  concause 
or  condition  that  goes  to  the  determination  of  the  other.  The 
spherical  form  arranges  and  determines  the  resultants  of  the 
elementary  forces,  and  thus  indirectly  determines  itself,  or  de¬ 
termines  that  action  of  the  elementary  forces  thus  combined, 
which  results  in  the  maintenance  or  stable  equilibrium  of  the 
spherical  form.  Again,  in  crystallization  the  already  formed 
bodies,  with  the  particular  directions  of  their  faces  and  axes, 


i88 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


determine  in  part  how  the  resultants  of  elementary  polar 
forces  will  act  in  the  further  growth  of  the  crystal,  or  in  the 
repair  of  a  broken  one;  and  the  elementary  forces,  thus  de¬ 
termined  and  combined,  result  in  the  crystalline  form,  and 
structure.  Thus  both  of  the  effects  which  are  put  in  the  antith¬ 
esis  of  cause  and  effect  in  the  above  quotation  are  also  partial 
agents.  They  act  and  react  on  each  other  in  the  production 
of  actual  crystals. 

But  this  point  was  of  importance  to  the  discussion  only  as 
exhibiting  a  kind  of  “  realism  ”  by  which  scientific  discussion 
is  very  liable  to  be  confused.  In  this  case,  the  wordy  profun¬ 
dity  was  not  quite  so  bald  and  conspicuous  as  the  ordinary  put¬ 
ting  of  a  single-worded  abstract  description  of  an  effect  for  its 
cause,  since  it  consisted  in  putting  one  of  two  such  abstractions 
as  the  cause  of  the  other.  More  important,  as  affecting  the 
truth  of  the  supposed  analogy  of  species  in  crystals  to  those  of 
organisms,  was  our  statement  which  Mr.  Mivart  confesses  is  ut¬ 
terly  beyond  him,  and  which,  as  he  certainly  has  misinterpreted 
it,  we  may  be  pardoned  for  repeating  and  explaining.  We  said, 
“  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  crystals,  neither  these  forces  [the* 
elementary]  nor  the  abstract  law  of  their  action  in  producing 
definite  angles  reside  in  the  finished  bodies,  but  in  the  proper¬ 
ties  of  the  surrounding  media,  portions  of  whose  constituents 
are  changed  into  crystals,  according  to  these  properties  and 
other  conditioning  circumstances.”  Our  author  has  made  us 
say  “ crystals ”  where  we  said  “angles,”  though  the  unintelli¬ 
gible  character  of  the  sentence  ought  to  have  made  him  the 
more  cautious  in  copying  it.  We  said  “angles”  because  these 
are  prominent  marks  of  the  species  of  the  crystal;  and  this  spe¬ 
cies  we  referred  to  the  nature  of  the  fluid  material  out  of  which 
the  crystal  is  formed,  and  to  the  modifying  influences  of  the 
presence  of  other  substances,  when  the  crystallization  takes 
place  from  solutions,  or  in  the  wet  way.  The  fact  that  the 
determination  of  the  species  of  a  crystal  is  not  in  any  germ  or 
nucleus  or  anything  belonging  in  a  special  way  to  the  partic¬ 
ular  crystal  itself,  but  is  in  the  molecular  forces  of  the  fluid  so¬ 
lution,  makes  the  analogy  of  species  in  crystals  to  those  of  or¬ 
ganisms  not  only  vague  but  false.  What  is  really  effected  by 


EVOL UTION  BY  NA  TURAL  SELECTION. 


189 


the  introduction  of  a  foreign  substance,  acid  or  alkali,  in  the 
solution,  is  a  change,  not  in  such  accidents  as  the  surrounding 
conditions  are  to  an  organism,  but  is  a  change  of  the  essential 
forces,  which  ought  to  change  the  character  or  species  of  the 
crystal  suddenly,  discretely,  or  discontinuously;  and  it  has  not, 
therefore,  the  remotest  likeness  to  such  suppositions  as  that  a 
duck  might  be  hatched  from  a  goose’s  egg,  or  a  goose  from  a 
duck’s;  or  that  a  horse  might  have  been  the  foal  of  an  hip- 
parion. 

Notwithstanding  that  our  statement  was  “utterly  beyond” 
our  author,  he  has  ventured  the  following  confident  comments 
(p.  460):  “If  this  is  so,”  he  says,  “then  when  a  broken  crystal 
completes  itself,  the  determining  forces  reside  exclusively  in  the 
media,  and  not  at  all  in  the  crystal  with  its  broken  surface! 
The  first  atoms  of  a  crystal  deposited  arrange  themselves  en¬ 
tirely  according  to  the  forces  of  the  surrounding  media,  and 
their  own  properties  are  utterly  without  influence  or  effect  in 
the  result!”  The  marks  of  exclamation  appended  to  these 
statements  ought  to  have  been  ours,  since  nothing  in  the  state¬ 
ments  themselves  has  the  remotest  dependence  on  anything  we 
said;  but  on  the  contrary  these  statements  are  directly  opposed 
to  the  objections  we  made  to  Mr.  Murphy’s  antitheses.  They 
might  be  deducible,  perhaps,  from  our  proposition,  in  the  form 
to  which  it  was  altered  through  the  substitution  of  the  word 
“crystals”  for  “angles,”  by  supposing  the  concrete  actual  crys¬ 
tals  to  be  referred  to,  instead  of  their  species ,  of  which  these 
angles  are  prominent  marks.  But  we  had  insisted  that  neither 
the  resulting  form,  nor  the  resultants  of  elementary  forces,  are 
exclusively  effects,  or  exclusively  causes  in  the  formation  or  in 
the  mending  of  actual  crystals;  yet  the  species  of  the  crystal  is 
fully  determined  by  what  is  outside  of  it,  or  by  causes  that  may 
be  abruptly  changed  by  a  change  in  the  medium.  Hence  the 
phenomena  of  dimorphism  and  polymorphism ,  and  similar 
chemical  phenomena,  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  hy¬ 
pothesis  of  “specific  genesis.” 

Several  similar  misunderstandings  of  more  special  criticisms 
in  our  review  tempt  us  (chiefly  from  personal  considerations) 
to  undertake  their  rectification;  but  our  object  in  this  article 


190 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


is  only  to  further  the  discussion,  so  far  as  it  can  be  done  under 
the  inconvenient  form  of  polemical  discussion,  by  removing 
confusions  and  misunderstandings  in  essential  matters.  Hence 
we  shall  not  dwell  upon  the  discussion  of  what  may  be  called 
hypotheses  of  the  second  degree,  or  hypothetical  illustrations 
of  the  action  of  natural  selection.  It  was  a  part  of  Mr.  Mi- 
vart’s  plan,  in  attacking  the  hypothesis  of  the  predominant 
agency  of  natural  selection  in  the  origination  of  species,  to  dis¬ 
credit  a  number  of  subordinate  hypotheses,  as  well  as  to  chal¬ 
lenge  the  theory  to  offer  any  adequate  ones  for  the  explanation 
of  certain  extraordinary  structures.  We  considered  in  detail 
several  objections  of  this  sort,  though  we  might  have  been 
content  with  simply  pointing  out  a  sufficient  answer  in  the  log¬ 
ical  weakness  of  such  a  mode  of  attack.  The  illustrations  of 
the  theory  which  have  been  proposed  have  not  in  general  at  all 
the  force  of  arguments ;  they  have  it  only  where  the  utility  of 
a  structure  is  simple  and  obvious  and  can  be  shown  by  direct 
evidence  to  be  effective  in  developing  the  structure  out  of  acci¬ 
dental  beginnings,  and  even  in  perfecting  it,  as  in  cases  of  the 
mimicry  of  certain  insects,  for  the  sake  of  a  protection,  which 
is  thus  really  acquired.  In  general,  the  illustrations  serve  only 
to  show  the  mode  of  action  supposed  in  the  theory,  without 
pretending  to  reconstruct  the  past  history  of  an  animal,  even 
by  the  roughest  sketch;,  or  to  determine  all  the  uses  of  any 
structure,  or  their  relative  importance. 

To  discredit  these  particular  secondary  hypotheses  has  no 
more  weight  as  an  argument  against  the  theory  than  the  hy¬ 
potheses  themselves  have  in  confirmation  of  it.  To  be  con¬ 
vinced  on  general  grounds  that  such  a  structure  as  that  of 
the  giraffe’s  neck  was  developed  by  insensible  steps  from  a 
more  common  form  of  the  neck  in  Ungulates,  through  the  oscil¬ 
lations  of  individual  differences,  and  by  the  special  utilities  of 
the  variations  which  have  made  the  neck  longer  in  some  indi¬ 
viduals  than  in  others,  or  through  the  utilities  of  these  to  the 
animals  under  the  special  conditions  of  their  past  existence,  is 
very  different  from  believing  that  this  or  that  particular  use  in 
the  structure  was  the  utility  (to  adopt  our  author’s  favorite 
form  of  definiteness)  which  governed  the  selection  or  deter* 


EVOLUTION  BY  NA  TUBAL  SELECTION. 


I9I 

mined  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  The  use  which  may  be  pre¬ 
sumed  in  general  to  govern  selection  is  a  combination,  with 
various  degrees  of  importance,  of  all  the  actual  uses  in  a  struct¬ 
ure.  There  can  be  no  more  propriety  in  demanding  of  the 
theory  of  natural  selection  that  it  should  assign  a  special  use,  or 
trace  out  the  history  hypothetically  of  any  particular  structure 
in  its  relations  to  past  conditions  of  existence,  than  there  would 
be  in  demanding  of  political  economy  that  it  should  justify  the 
correctness  of  its  general  principles  by  success  in  explaining 
the  record  of  past  prices  in  detail,  or  accounting  in  particular 
for  a  given  financial  anomaly.  In  either  case,  the  proper  evi¬ 
dence  is  wanting.  Any  instance,  however,  of  a  structure  which 
could  be  conclusively  shown  (a  very  difficult  kind  of  proof)  to 
exist,  or  to  be  developed  in  any  way,  without  reference  in  the 
process  of  development  to  any  utility  whatever,  past  or  present, 
or  to  any  past  forms  of  the  structure,  would,  indeed,  go  far 
towards  qualifying  the  evidence,  otherwise  mostly  affirmative, 
of  the  predominant  agency  of  natural  selection. 

We  may  remark  by  the  way  that  Mr.  Mivart’s  definite  thesis, 
“that  natural  selection  is  not  the  origin  of  species,”  is  really 
not  the  question.  No  more  was  ever  claimed  for  it  than  that 

it  is  the  most  influential  of  the  agencies  through  which  species 

* 

have  been  modified.  Lamarck’s  principle  of  the  direct  effect 
of  habit,  or  actual  use  and  disuse,  has  never  been  abandoned 
by  later  evolutionists;  and  Mr.  Darwin  has  given  much  more 
attention  to  its  proof  and  illustration  in  his  work  on  “Variation 
under  Domestication”  than  any  other  writer.  Moreover,  the 
physiological  causes  which  produce  reversions  and  correlations 
of  growth,  and  which,  so  far  as  they  are  known,  are  quite  inde¬ 
pendent  of  natural  selection,  are  also  recognized  as  causes  of 
change.  But  all  these  are  subordinated  in  the  theory  to  the 
advantage  and  consequent  survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  struggle 
for  life,  or  to  natural  selection.  Upon  this  point  we  must  refer 
our  readers  to  the  “Additions  and  Corrections”  in  the  lately 
published  sixth  edition  of  the  “Origin  of  Species”;  in  which 
also  all  the  objections  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Mivart,  which 
had  not  previously  been  examined  in  the  work,  are  fully  con¬ 
sidered;  and,  we  need  hardly  add,  far  more  thoroughly  and 


i92 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


adequately  than  could  be  possible  for  us,  or  in  the  pages  of 
this  Review.. 

\YTe  will,  nevertheless,  give,  in  sheer  self-defense,  the  correc¬ 
tion  of  one  perversion  of  our  criticism.  Mr.  Mivart  had  argued 
in  his  book  that  the  use  of  the  giraffe’s  long  neck  for  browsing 
on  the  foliage  of  trees,  and  the  advantage  of  it  in  times  of 
drought,  could  not  be  the  cause  of  its  gradual  increase  by  se¬ 
lection  ;  since  this  advantage,  if  a  real  one,  would  be  equally 
an  advantage  to  all  Ungulates  inhabiting  the  country  of  the 
giraffe,  or  similar  regions;  and  that  the  other  Ungulates,  at 
least  in  such  regions,  ought  to  have  been  similarly  modified. 
We  allowed  that  there  was  force  in  the  objection,  but  we  were 
mistaken.  The  very  conditions  of  the  selection  must  have 
been  a  competition  which  would  have  soon  put  a  large  major¬ 
ity  of  the  competitors  out  of  the  lists,  and  have  narrowed  the 
contest  to  a  few  races,  and  finally  to  the  individuals  of  a  single 
race.  All  the  rest  must  have  early  given  up  the  struggle  for 
life  in  this  direction;  since  a  slight  increase  in  the  length  of 
the  neck  could  have  been  of  no  advantage  if  the  reach  of  it 
still  fell  far  short  of  the  unconsumed  foliage.  The  success  of 
the  survivors  among  them  must  have  been  won  in  some  other 
direction,  like  the  power  of  rapid  and  wide  ranging,  or  organs 
better  adapted  to  close  grazing.  For  a  fuller  development  and 
illustration  of  this  reply  we  must  refer  to  Chapter  VII.  in  the 
new  edition  of  the  “  Origin  of  Species,”  in  which  most  of  Mr. 
Mivart’s  objections  are  considered.  We  attempted  a  reply  to 
this  objection  in  a  direction  in  which  his  own  remarks  led  us. 
Granting  that  the  advantage  of  a  long  neck  would  have  been 
equally  an  advantage  to  all  Ungulates  in  South  Africa;  that 
there  was  no  alternative  or  substitute  for  it;  and  that  the  use 
.  of  the  neck  for  high  reaching  in  times  of  drought  could  not 
therefo7'e  have  been  the  efficient  cause  of  its  preservation  and 
increase  through  selection;  still  there  were  other  and  very  im¬ 
portant  uses  in  such  a  neck,  to  which  these  objections  do  not 
apply,  and  through  which  there  would  be  advantages  in  the 
struggle  for  life,  that  would  determine  competition  only  among 
the  individuals  of  a  single  race;  while  those  of  other  races 
would  compete  with  each  other  on  other  grounds.  Mr.  Mivart 


EVOL UTION  B  Y  NA  TURAL  SELECTION. 


193 


admitted  that  there  might  be  several  lines  of  advantage  in 
means  of  protection  or  defense ;  and  cited  instances  from  Mr. 
Wallace,  showing,  for  example,  that  a  dull  color,  useful  for  con¬ 
cealing  an  animal,  would  not  be  an  advantage  to  those  animals 
which  are  otherwise  sufficiently  protected,  and  do  not  need 
concealment.  The  use  of  the  giraffe’s  neck,  then,  as  a  means 
of  defense  and  offense,  for  which  there  was  ample  evidence,  its 
use  as  a  watch-tower  and  as  a  weapon  of  offense,  would  be 
raised  by  Mr.  Mivart’s  objection  to  greater  prominence,  and 
might  be  the  principal  ground  of  advantage  and  competition 
between  giraffe  and  giraffe,  or  one  herd  of  them  and  another, 
with  reference  to  protection  from  the  larger  beasts  of  prey;  an 
advantage  which  would  be  incessant  instead  of  occasional,  like 
the  high-reaching  advantage  in  times  of  drought.  The  use,  as 
we  have  said,  means,  with  reference  to  the  advantage  in  the 
struggle  for  life,  the  combination  of  all  the  uses  that  are  of 
importance  to  the  preservation  of  life.  Accordingly  we  de¬ 
manded  whether  Mr.  Mivart,  having  made  a  special  objection 
to  the  importance  of  one  use,  as  affording  advantages  and 
grounds  for  selection  (an  objection  which  we  allowed,  though 
unwarrantably),  we  demanded  whether  he  could  possibly  sup¬ 
pose  that  this  exhausted  the  matter,  or  that  the  supposed  small 
importance  of  this  use  precluded  the  existence  of  uses  more 
important  which  would  afford  grounds  of  advantage  and  com¬ 
petition  in  the  struggle  for  life. 

As  would  be  the  case  with  one  having  the  true  “philosophical 
habit  of  mind,”  to  be  distinguished  from  the  “scientific,”  Mr. 
Mivart’s  notice  was  attracted  to  the  form  in  which  we  made  this 
inquiry,  rather  than  to  the  material  import  of  it,  and  “as  we 
might  a  priori  expect  to  be  the  case,”  he  showed  “  that  breadth 
of  view,  freedom  of  handling,  and  flexibility  of  mind”  which 
he  believes  to  characterize  the  true  philosopher,  as  contrasted 
with  the  mere  physicist;  but  in  a  manner  which  appears  to  us 
to  characterize  rather  the  mere  dialectician.  With  great  fer¬ 
tility  of  invention  he  attempts  the  interpretation  of  our  inquiry 
(which  we  grant  was  not  sufficiently  explicit  for  the  “philo¬ 
sophical  habit  of  mind  ”).  The  first  interpretation  is  playful, 
and  too  delicate  a  jest  to  be  transplanted  to  our  pages.  The 

9 


i94 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


next  is,  on  the  other  hand,  altogether  too  serious.  He  asks 
in  return  (p.  463),  whether  we  can  suppose  “that  he  ever 
dreamed  that  the  structures  of  animals  are  not  useful  to  them, 
or  that  his  position  is  an  altogether  anti-teleological  one.”  No, 
we  certainly  do  not.  We  only  suppose  that  his  position  is  not 
sufficiently  teleological  to  interest  him  in  the  inquiry,  and  that 
he  has  overlooked  many  uses  in  the  structures  of  animals,  to 
which  his  special  objections  do  not  apply,  and  has  vainly  im¬ 
agined,  that  by  making  those  he  felt  called  upon  to  examine 
as  few  and  as  faint  as  possible  (except  for  the  purpose  of 
inspiring  the  agreeable  emotion  of  admiration),  he  has  re¬ 
duced  them  to  mere  luxuries,  having  little  or  no  value  as. 
grounds  of  advantage  in  the  actual,  incessant,  and  severe 
struggle  to  which  all  life  is  subject.  “Nothing  is  easier  than 
to  admit  in  words  the  truth  of  the  universal  struggle  for  life, 
or  more  difficult” — even  Mr.  Darwin  finds  it  so — “than  con¬ 
stantly  to  bear  this  conclusion  in  mind.  Yet  unless  it  be 
thoroughly  engrained  in  the  mind,  the  whole  economy  of  na¬ 
ture,  with  every  fact  in  distribution,  rarity,  abundance,  extinc¬ 
tion,  and  variation,  will  be  dimly  seen  or  quite  misunderstood.” 

Supposing  us  possessed  by  some  such  idea  as  that  his  “posi¬ 
tion  is  an  altogether  anti-teleological  one,”  Mr.  Mivart  observes 
that  we  proceed  “  to  exhibit  the  giraffe’s  neck  in  the  character 
of  a  ‘watch-tower.’  But,”  he  adds,  “this  leaves  the  question 
just  where  it  was  before.  Of  course  I  concede  most  readily 
and  fully  that  it  is  a  most  admirable  watch-tower,  as  it  also  is 
a  most  admirable  high-reaching  organ,  but  this  tells  us  nothing 
of  its  origin.  In  both  cases  the  long  neck  is  most  useful  when 
you  have  got  it ;  but  the  question  is  how  it  arose ,  and  in  this 
species  alone.  And  similar  and  as  convincing  arguments 
could  be  brought  against  the  watch-tower  theory  of  origin  as 
against  the  high-reaching  theory,  and  not  only  this,  but  also 
against  every  other  theory  which  could  possibly  be  adduced.” 
It  appears  that  Mr.  Mivart  is  prepared,  a  priori ,  to  meet  any 
number  of  foes  of  this  sort  that  may  present  themselves  singly. 
But  the  use,  that  is,  all  the  essential  uses  of  a  structure,  do  not 
thus  present  themselves  to  our  consideration  and  criticism.  To 
deal  adequately  with  the  problem,  we  need  the  power  to  con- 


E VOL UTION  BY  NA  TURA L  SELECTION. 


J95 


ceive  how  closely  the  uses  lie  to  the  actual  necessities  of  life; 
how,  while  we  may  be  admiring  in  imagination  the  almost  su¬ 
perfluous  bounties  of  nature,  this  admirable  watch-tower  and 
high-reaching  organ  may  just  be  failing  to  save  the  poor  ani¬ 
mal,  so  highly  endowed,  from  a  miserable  death.  A  lion, 
whose  stealthy  approach  it  would  have  detected,  if  a  few  inches 
more  in  the  length  of  its  neck,  or  in  those  of  its  companions, 
had  enabled  it,  or  them,  to  see  a  few  rods  further,  or  over  some 
intervening  obstacle,  has  meantime  sprung  upon  the  wretched 
beast,  and  is  drawing  its  life-blood.  This,  if  we  were  aware  of 
it,  would  be  the  proper  occasion  to  turn  our  admiration  upon 
the  fine  endowments  of  the  lion.  Or,  continuing  our  contem¬ 
plation  of  the  giraffe,  it  may  be  that  its  admirable  high-reach¬ 
ing  organ  has  just  failed  to  reach  the  few  remaining  leaves 
near  the  tops  of  trees,  which  might  have  served  to  keep  up  its 
strength  against  the  attacks  of  its  enemies,  or  enabled  it  to 
deal  more  effective  blows  with  its  short  horns,  so  admirably 
placed  as  weapons  of  offense;  or  might  have  served  to  sustain 
it  through  the  famine  and  drought,  till  the  returning  rains 
would  have  given  it  more  cause  for  gratitude  (and  us  more 
occasion  for  admiration),  for  a  few  additional  inches  of  its 
neck  than  for  all  the  rest.  Meantime,  for  the  lack  of  these 
inches,  our  giraffe  may  have  sickened  and  perished  miserably, 
failing  in  the  competition  and  struggle  for  life.  This  need  not 
stagger  the  optimist.  The  bounty  of  nature  is  not  exhausted 
in  giraffes.  We  can  still  admire  the  providential  structure  of 
the  tree,  which  \b y  its  high-reaching  branches  has  preserved 
some  of  its  foliage  from  destruction  by  these  beasts,  and  per¬ 
haps  thereby  saved  not  only  its  own  life,  but  that  of  its  kind. 
The  occasions  of  destruction,  even  in  the  best  guarded,  most 
highly  endowed  lives,  are  all  of  the  nature  of  accidents,  and 
are  generally  as  slight  as  the  individual  advantages  are,  for 
which  so  much  influence  is  claimed  in  the  theory  of  natural 
selection.  Even  death  from  old  age  is  not  a  termination  pre¬ 
ordained  in  the  original  powers  of  any  life,  but  is  the  effect  of 
accumulated  causes  of  this  sort.  Much  of  the  destruction  to 
which  life  is  subject*  is  strictly  fortuitous  so  far  as  either  the 


*  The  fortuity  or  chance  is  here,  as  in  all  other  cases,  a  relative  fact.  The  strictest 
use  of  the  word  applies  to  events  which  could  not  be  anticipated  except  by  omnis- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DLSCUSSIONS. 


196 

general  powers  or  individual  advantages  in  structures  and 
habits  are  concerned ;  and  is,  therefore,  quite  independent  of 
the  effects  of  these  advantages.  Hence  these  effects  are  not 
thereby  limited;  for  though  a  form  of  life  presses,  and  is 
pressed  upon,  in  all  directions,  yet  it  presses  forward  no  less 
in  the  directions  of  its  advantages. 

The  “philosophical  habit  of  mind,”  which  Mr.  Mivart  admires 
for  its  “breadth  of  view,  freedom  of  handling,  and  flexibility  of 
mind,”  is  sometimes  optimistic,  sometimes  pessimistic  in  its 
views  of  providence  in  nature,  according  as  this  flexible  mind 
has  its  attention  bent  by  a  genial  or  morose  disposition  to  a 
bright  or  dark  aspect  in  things.  But,  whichever  it  is,  it  is 
generally  extreme  or  absolute  in  its  judgments.  The  “scien¬ 
tific”  mind,  which  Mr.  Mivart  contrasts  with  it,  and  believes 
to  be  characterized  by  “a  certain  rigidity  and  narrowness,”  is 
held  rigidly  to  the  truth  of  things,  whether  good  or  bad,  agree¬ 
able  or  disagreeable,  admirable  or  despicable,  and  is  narrowed 
to  the  closest,  most  uncompromising  study  of  facts,  and  to  a 
training  which  enables  it  to  render  in  imagination  the  truest 
account  of  nature  as  it  actually  exists.  The  “  scientific  ”  imagi¬ 
nation  is  fashioned  by  physical  studies  after  the  patterns  of 
nature  itself.  The  “philosophical  habit  of  mind,”  trained  in 
the  school  of  human  life,  is  the  habit  of  viewing  and  interpret¬ 
ing  nature  according  to  its  own  dispositions,  and  defending  its 
interpretations  and  attacking  others  with  the  skill  and  weapons 
of  forensic  and  dialectical  discussions.  The  earlier  physical 
philosophers,  the  “  physicists  ”  of  the  ancient  school,  were 
“philosophers”  in  our  author’s  sense  of  the  term.  They  had 
not  the  “scientific”  mind,  since  to  them  nature  was  a  chaos 

cience.  To  speak,  therefore,  of  an  event  as  strictly  accidental  is  not  equivalent  to  regard¬ 
ing  it  as  undetermined,  but  only  as  determined  in  a  manner  which  cannot  be  anticipated 
by  a  finite  intelligence  (see  Mr.  Mivart’s  Reply,  p.  458).  There  are  degrees  in  the  in¬ 
telligibility  of  things,  according  to  human  means  and  standards.  Events  like  eclipses 
which  are  the  most  normal  and  predictable  of  all  events  to  the  astronomer,  are  to  the 
savage  pure  accidents;  and  with  still  lower  forms  of  intelligence  events  are  unforeseen 
which  are  familiar  anticipations  in  the  intelligence  of  the  savage.  To  believe  events  to 
be  designed  or  not,  according  as  they  are  or  are  not  predictable  by  us,  is  to  assume  for 
ourselves  a  complete  and  absolute  knowledge  of  nature  which  we  do  not  possess.  Hence 
faith  in  a  designing  intelligence,  supreme  in  nature,  is  not  the  result  of  any  capacity  in 
our  own  intelligence  to  comprehend  the  design,  and  is  quite  independent  of  any  dis¬ 
tinctions  we  may  make,  relative  to  our  own  powers  of  prediction,  between  orderly  and 
accidental  events. 


E  VOL UTION  BY  NA  TUBAL  SELECTION. 


197 


hardly  less  confused  than  human  affairs,  and  was  studied  with 
the  same  “  breadth  of  view,  freedom  of  handling,  and  flexibility 
of  mind”  which  are  fitted  for  and  disciplined  by  such  affairs. 
They  were  wise  rather  than  well  informed.  Their  observation 
was  guided  by  tact  and  subtilty,  or  fine  powers  of  discrimination, 
instead  of  by  that  machinery  of  knowledge  and  the  arts  which 
now  fashions  and  guides  the  “scientific”  mind.  Thus  the  the¬ 
ory  of  atoms  of  Democritus  has  little  resemblance  to  the  chem¬ 
ical  theory  of  atoms,  since  “the  modern  theory  is  the  law  of 
definite  proportions ;  the  ancient  theory  is  merely  the  affirma¬ 
tion  of  indefinite  combinations.”  Indefinite,  or  at  least  inexpli¬ 
cable,  combinations  meet  the  modern  student  of  science,  both 
physical  and  social,  at  every  step  of  his  researches,  and  in  all 
the  sciences  with  which  we  have  compared  the  theory  of  natu¬ 
ral  selection.  He  does  not  stop  to  lay  hold  upon  these  a 
priori ,  with  the  loose  though  flexible  grasp  of  the  “philosophical 
habit  of  mind,”  but  studies  the  intimate  and  elementary 
orders  in  them,  and  presumes  them  to  be  made  up  of  such  or¬ 
ders,  though  woven  in  infinite  and  inexplicable  complexity  of 
pattern. 

The  division  which  Mr.  Mivart  makes  in  kinds  of  intellectual 
ability,  the  “  philosophical  ”  and  “  scientific,”  and  regards  as  a 
more  real  distinction  than  the  threefold  division  we  proposed,* 
is  really  determined  by  a  broad  distinction  in  the  object-matter 
of  thought  and  study,  and  is  not  in  any  way  inconsistent  with 
what  we  still  regard  as  an  equally  real  but  more  elementary 
one,  which  is  equivalent  in  fact  to  the  logical  division  of  “hy¬ 
pothesis,”  “simple  induction,”  and  “deduction.”  These  are 
not,  indeed,  co-ordinate  as  logical  elements,  since  induction  and 
deduction  exhaust  the  simple  elements  of  understanding  when 
unaided  by  trained  powers  of  perception  and  imagination. 
But  practically,  as  habits  of  thought  and  disciplined  skill  in  the 
study  of  nature  and  human  affairs,  they  are  distinct  and  diver¬ 
gent  modes  of  investigation,  partly  determined  by  the  character 
of  the  problem, — whether  it  be  to  explain  a  fact,  or  to  properly 
name  and  classify  it,  or  to  prove  it  from  assumed  or  admitted 
premises.  Skill  in  the  formation  and  verification  of  hypothesis, 


*  See  ante  p.  14 1 


198 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


dependent  on  a  power  of  imagination,  which  physical  studies 
discipline  peculiarly,  belongs  peculiarly  to  the  student  of  phys¬ 
ical  science ;  and  though,  perhaps,  “  a  poor  monster,”  as  Mr. 
Mivart  says,  when  without  an  adequate  basis  in  more  strictly 
inductive  studies,  yet  in  that  division  of  labors  and  abilities, 
on  which  the  economy  and  efficiency  of  scientific  investigation 
so  largely  depends,  there  is  no  propriety  in  thus  regarding  him, 
so  long  as  co-operation  in  the  pursuit  of  truth  produces  a  sym¬ 
metrical  whole;  not,  indeed,  complete  in  a  single  mind,  except 
so  far  as  it  is  erudite  or  instructed  beyond  the  range  of  its 
special  abilities,  but  in  that  solid  general  progress  of  science 
which  such  co-operation  promotes. 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

It  has  come  to  be  understood,  and  very  generally  allowed, 
that  the  conception  of  the  origin  of  man  as  an  animal  race,  as 
well  as  the  origin  of  individual  men  within  it,  in  accordance 
with  the  continuity  of  organic  development  maintained  in  the 
theory  of  evolution,  does  not  involve  any  very  seriops  difficul¬ 
ties,  or  difficulties  so  great  as  are  presented  by  any  other  hy¬ 
pothesis  of  this  origin,  not  excepting  that  of  “special  creation  ”; 
— if  that  can  be  properly  called  a  hypothesis,  which  is,  in  fact, 
a  resumption  of  all  the  difficulties  of  natural  explanation,  as¬ 
suming  them  to  be  insuperable  and  summarizing  them  under  a 
single  positive  name.  Yet  in  this  evolution,  the  birth  of  self- 
consciousness  is  still  thought  by  many  to  be  a  step  not  follow¬ 
ing  from  antecedent  conditions  in  “nature,”  except  in  an  in¬ 
cidental  manner,  or  in  so  far  only  as  “natural”  antecedents 
have  prepared  the  way  for  the  “supernatural”  advent  of  the 
self-conscious  soul. 

Independently  of  the  form  of  expression,  and  of  the  false 
sentiment  which  is  the  motive  of  the  antithesis  in  this  familiar 
conception,  or  independently  of  its  mystical  interest,  which  has 
given  to  the  words  “natural”  and  “supernatural”  their  com¬ 
monly  accepted  meanings,  there  is  a  foundation  of  scientific 
truth  in  the  conception.  For  the  word  “evolution”  conveys  a 
false  impression  to  the  imagination,  not  really  intended  in  the 
scientific  use  of  it.  It  misleads  by  suggesting  a  continuity  in 
the  kinds  of  powers  and  functions  in  living  beings,  that  is,  by 
suggesting  transition  by  insensible  steps  from  one  kind  to  an 
other,  as  well  as  in  the  degrees  of  their  importance  and  exercise 
at  different  stages  of  development.  The  truth  is,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  that  according  to  the  theory  of  evolution,  new  uses  of  old 


*  From  the  North  American  Review,  April,  1873. 


200 


PHIL  0S0PHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


powers  arise  discontinuously  both  in  the  bodily  and  mental  nat¬ 
ures  of  the  animal,  and  in  its  individual  developments,  as  well 
as  in  the  development  of  its  race,  although,  at  their  rise,  these 
uses  are  small  and  of  the  smallest  importance  to  life.  They  seem 
merged  in  the  powers  to  which  they  are  incident,  and  seem  also 
merged  in  the  special  purposes  or  functions  in  which,  however, 
they  really  have  no  part,  and  which  are  no  parts  of  them.  Their 
services  or  functions  in  life,  though  realized  only  incidentally 
at  first,  and  in  the  feeblest  degree,  are  just  as  distinct  as  they 
afterwards  come  to  appear  in  their  fullest  development.  The 
new  uses  are  related  to  older  powers  only  as  accidents}  so  far  as 
the  special  services  of  the  older  powers  are  concerned,  although, 
from  the  more  general  point  of  view  of  natural  law,  their  rela¬ 
tions  to  older  uses  have  not  the  character  of  accidents,  since 
these  relations  are,  for  the  most  part,  determined  by  universal 
properties  and  laws,  which  are  not  specially  related  to  the  needs 
and  conditions  of  living  beings.  Thus  the  uses  of  limbs  for 
swimming,  crawling,  walking,  leaping,  climbing,  and  flying  are 
distinct  uses,  and  are  related  to  each  other  only  through  the 
general  mechanical  principles  of  locomotion,  through  which 
some  one  use,  in  its  first  exercise,  may  be  incident  to  some  other, 
though,  in  its  full  exercise  and  perfection  of  special  service,  it  is 
independent  of  the  other,  or  has  only  a  common  dependence 
with  the  otherfoiymore  general  conditions. 

Many  mental  as  well  as  bodily  powers  thus  have  mixed 
natures,  or  independent  uses ;  as,  for  example,  the  powers  of 
the  voice  to  call  and  allure,  to  warn  and  repel,  and  its  uses  in 
music  and  language ;  or  the  numerous  uses  of  the  human  hand 
in  services  of  strength  and  dexterity.  And,  on  the  contrary, 
the  same  uses  are,  in  some  cases,  realized  by  independent  or¬ 
gans  as,  for  example,  respiration  ip  water  and  in  the  air  by  gills 
and  lungs,  or  flight  by  means  of  fins,  feathers,  and  webs.  The 
appearance  of  a  really  new  power  in  nature  (using  this  word  in 
the  wide  meaning  attached  to  it  in  science),  the  power  of  flight 
in  the  first  birds,  for  example,  is  only  involved  potentially  in 
previous  phenomena.  In  the  same  way,  no  act  of  self-con¬ 
sciousness,  however  elementary,  may  have  been  realized  before 
man’s  first  self-conscious  act  in  the  animal  world;  yet  the  act 


E  VOL  UTION  OF  SELF -  CONS  CIO  USNESS. 


201 


may  have  been  involved  potentially  in  pre-existing  powers  or 
causes.  The  derivation  of  this  power,  supposing  it  to  have 
been  observed  by  a  finite  angelic  (not  animal)  intelligence, 
could  not  have  been  foreseen  to  be  involved  in  the  mental 
causes,  on  the  conjunction  of  which  it  might,  nevertheless, 
have  been  seen  to  depend.  The  angelic  observation  would 
have  been  a  purely  empirical  one.  The  possibility  of  a  subse¬ 
quent  analysis  of  these  causes  by  the.  self-conscious  animal 
himself,  which  would  afford  an  explanation  of  their  agency, 
by  referring  it  to  a  rational  combination  of  simpler  elements  in 
them,  would  not  alter  the  case  to  the  angelic  intelligence,  just 
as  a  rational  explanation  of  flight  could  not  be  reached  by 
such  an  intelligence  as  a  consequence  of  known  mechanical 
laws;  since  these  laws  are  also  animal  conditions,  or  rather  are 
more  general  and  material  ones,  of  which  our  angelic,  spher¬ 
ical  #  intelligence  is  not  supposed  to  have  had  any  experience. 
Its  observation  of  the  conditions  of  animal  flight  would  thus 
also  be  empirical ;  for  an  unembodied  spirit  cannot  be  supposed 
to  analyze  out  of  its  general  experiences  the  mechanical  con¬ 
ditions  of  movement  in  animal  bodies,  nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  be  any  more  able  than  the  mystic  appears  to  be  to  analyze 
the  conditions  of  its  own  intelligence  out  of  its  experiences  of 
animal  minds. 

The  forces  and  laws  of  molecular  physics  are  similarly  re¬ 
lated  to  actual  human  intelligence.  Sub-sensible  properties 
and  powers  can  only  be  empirically  known,  though  they  are 
“visualized”  in  the  hypotheses  of  molecular  movements  and 
forces.  Experimental  science,  as  in  chemistry,  is  full  of  ex¬ 
amples  of  the  discovery  of  new  properties  or  new  powers, 
which,  so  far  as  the  conditions  of  their  appearance  were  pre¬ 
viously  known,  did  not  follow  from  antecedent  conditions,  ex¬ 
cept  in  an  incidental  manner, — that  is,  in  a  manner  not  then 
foreseen  to  be  involved  in  them;  and  these  effects  became 
afterwards  predictable  from  what  had  become  known  to  be 
their  antecedent  conditions  only  by  the  empirical  laws  or  rules 
which  inductive  experimentation  had  established.  Neverthe- 

*  For  an  intellect  complete  without  appendages  of  sense  or  locomotion,  see  Plato’s 
Timseus,  33,  34. 


202 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


less,  the  phenomena  of  the  physical  or  chemical  laboratory, 
however  new  or  unprecedented,  are  very  far  from  having  the 
character  of  miracles,  in  the  sense  of  supernatural  events. 
They  are  still  natural  events ;  for,  to  the  scientific  imagination, 
nature  means  more  than  the  continuance  or  actual  repetition 
of  the  properties  and  productions  involved  in  the  course  of 
ordinary  events,  or  more  than  the  inheritance  and  reappearance 
of  that  which  appears  in  consequence  of  powers  which  have 
made  it  appear  before.  It  means,  in  general,  those  kinds  of 
effects  which,  though  they  may  have  appeared  but  once  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  world,  yet  appear  dependent  on  conjunc¬ 
tions  of  causes  which  would  always  be  followed  by  them. 
One  experiment  is  sometimes,  in  some  branches  of  science,  (as 
a  wide  induction  has  found  it  to  be  in  chemistry,  for  example,) 
sufficient  to  determine  such  a  dependence,  though  the  particu¬ 
lar  law  so  determined  is  a  wholly  empirical  one;  and  the  his¬ 
tory  of  science  has  examples  of  such  single  experiments,  or 
short  series  of  experiments,  made  on  general  principles  of  ex¬ 
perimentation,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  empirical  facts 
or  laws,  qualities,  or  relations,  which  are,  nevertheless,  gener¬ 
alized  as  universal  ones.  Certain  “physical  constants,”  so 
called,  were  so  determined,  and  are  applied  in  scientific 
inference  with  the  same  unhesitating  confidence  as  that  inspired 
by  the  familiarly  exemplified  and  more  elementary  “  laws  of 
nature,”  or  even  by  axioms.  Scientific  research  implies  the 
potential  existence  of  the  natures,  classes,  or  kinds  of  effects 
which  experiment  brings  to  light  through  instances,  and  for 
which  it  also  determines,  in  accordance  with  inductive  meth¬ 
ods,  the  previously  unknown  conditions  of  their  appearance. 
This  research  implies  the  latent  kinds  or  natures  which  mystical 
research  contemplates  (erroneously,  in  some,  at  least,  of  its 
meditations)  under  the  name  of  “the  supernatural.” 

To  make  any  event  or  power  supernatural  in  the  mystic’s  re¬ 
gard  requires,  however,  not  merely  that  it  shall  be  isolated  and 
unparalleled  in  nature,  but  that  it  shall  have  more  than  an  or¬ 
dinary,  or  merely  scientific,  interest  to  the  mystic’s  or  to  the 
human  mind.  The  distinctively  human  or  self-conscious  in¬ 
terest,  or  sentiment,  of  self-consciousness  gives  an  emphasis  tc 


E  VOL  UTION  OF  SELF-  CO  NS  CIO  USNESS. 


203 


the  contrast  named  “natural  and  supernatural,”  through  which 
mysticism  is  led  to  its  speculations  or  assumptions  of  corre¬ 
spondingly  emphatic  contrasts  in  real  existences.  For  mysti¬ 
cism  is  a  speculation  interpreting  as  matters  of  fact,  or  real  ex¬ 
istences  outside  of  consciousness,  impressions  which  are  only 
determined  within  it  by  emphasis  of  attention  or  feeling.  It 
is  for  the  purpose  of  deepening  still  more,  or  to  the  utmost  that 
its  interest  suggests,  the  really  profound  distinction  between  hu¬ 
man  and  animal  consciousness,  or  for  the  purpose  of  making 
the  distinction  absolute ,  of  deepening  this  gulf  into  an  unfath¬ 
omable  and  impassable  one,  that  mysticism  appears  to  be 
moved  to  its  speculations,  and  has  imbued  most  philosophy 
and  polite  learning  with  its  conceptions.  Mental  philosophy, 
or  metaphysics,  has,  consequently,  come  down  to  us  from 
ancient  times  least  affected  by  the  speculative  interests  and 
methods  of  modern  science.  Mysticism  still  reigns  over  the 
science  of  the  mind,  though  its  theory  in  general,  or  what 
is  common  to  all  theories  called  mystical,  is  very  vague,  and 
obscure  even  in  the  exclusively  religious  applications  of  the 
term.  This  vagueness  has  given  rise  to  the  more  extended 
use  and  understanding  of  the  term  as  it  is  here  employed, 
which  indicates  little  else  than  the  generally  apprehended 
motive  of  its  speculations,  or  the  feelings  allied  to  all  its 
forms  of  conception.  These  centre  in  the  feeling  of  abso¬ 
lute  worthiness  in  self-consciousness,  as  the  source,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  perfection  of  existence  and  power.  The  natu¬ 
ralist’s  observations  on  the  minds  of  men  and  animals  are  im¬ 
pertinences  of  the  least  possible  interest  to  this  sense  of  worth, 
very  much  as  the  geologist’s  observations  are  generally  to  the 
speculator  who  seeks  in  the  earth  for  hidden  mineral  treasures. 

Mysticism  in  mental  philosophy  has  apparently  gained,  so' 
far  as  it  has  been  materially  affected  by  such  observations,  a 
relative  external  strength,  dependent  on  the  real  feebleness  of 
the  opposition  it  has  generally  met  with  from  lovers  of  ani¬ 
mals  and  from  empirical  observers  and  thinkers,  in  whom  a 
generous  sympathy  with  the  manifestations  of  mind  in  animals 
and  a*  disposition  to  do  justice  to  them  have  been  more  con¬ 
spicuous  than  the  qualities  of  clearness  or  consistency.  For, 


204 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


in  the  comparisons  which  they  have  attempted  they  have  gen¬ 
erally  sought  to  break  down  the  really  well-founded  distinctions 
of  human  and  animal  intelligence,  and  have  sought  to  discredit 
the  theory  of  them  in  this  way,  rather  than  by  substituting  for 
it  a  rational,  scientific  account  of  what  is  real  in  them.  The 
ultimate  metaphysical  mystery  which  denies  all  comparison, 
and  pronounces  man  a  paragon  in  the  kinds,  as  well  the  de¬ 
grees,  of  his  mental  faculties,  is,  as  a  solution,  certainly  simpler , 
whatever  other  scientific  excellence  it  may  lack,  than  any  so¬ 
lution  that  the  difficulties  of  a  true  scientific  comparison  are 
likely  to  receive. 

It  is  not  in  a  strictly  empirical  way  that  this  comparison 
can  be  clearly  and  effectively  made,  but  rather  by’ a  critical 
re-examination  of  the  phenomena  of  self-consciousness  in 
themselves,  with  reference  to  their  possible  evolution  from 
powers  obviously  common  to  all  animal  intelligences,  or  with 
reference  to  their  potential,  though  not  less  natural,  exist¬ 
ence  in  mental  causes,  which  could  not  have  been  known  to 
involve  them  before  their  actual  manifestation,  but  may,  nev¬ 
ertheless,  be  found  to  do  so  by  an  analysis  of  these  causes  into 
the  more  general  conditions  of  mental  phenomena.  Mystical 
metaphysics  should  be  met  by  scientific  inquiries  on  its  own 
ground,  that  is,  dogmatically,  or  by  theory,  since  it  despises 
the  facts  of  empirical  observation,  or  attributes  them  to  shal¬ 
lowness,  misinterpretation,  or  errors  of  observation,  and  con¬ 
tents  itself  with  its  strength  as  a  system,  and  its  impregnable 
self-consistency.  Only  an  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of 
human  consciousness,  equally  clear  and  self-consistent  with  its 
own,  and  one  which,  though  not  so  simple,  is  yet  more  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  the  facts  of  a  wider  induction,  could  equal  it  in 
strength.  But  this  might  still  be  expected  as  the  result  of  an 
examination  of  mental  phenomena  from  the  point  of  view  of 
true  science ;  since  many  modern  sciences  afford  examples  of 
similar  triumphs  over  equally  ancient,  simple,  and  apparently 
impregnable  doctrines.  The  history  of  science  is  full,  indeed, 
of  illustrations  of  the  impotence,  on  one  hand,  of  exceptional 
and  isolated  facts  against  established  theory,  and  of  the  power, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  their  organization  in  new  theories  to  rev- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


20c; 

w 

olutionize  beliefs.  The  physical  doctrine  of  a  plenum ,  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  epicycles  and  vortices  in  astronomy,  the  corpuscular 
theory  of  optics,  that  of  cataclysms  in  geology,  and  that  of 
special  creations  in  biology,  each  gave  way,  not  absolutely 
through  its  intrinsic  weakness,  but  through  the  greater  success 
of  a  rival  theory  which  superseded  it.  A  sketch  only  is  at¬ 
tempted  in  this  essay  of  some  of  the  results  of  such  an  exam¬ 
ination  into  the  psychological  conditions,  or  antecedents,  of 
•the  phenomena  of  self-consciousness;  an  examination  which 
does  not  aim  at  diminishing,  on  the  one  hand,  the  real  contrasts 
of  mental  powers  in  men  and  animals,  nor  at  avoiding  difficul¬ 
ties,  on  the  other,  by  magnifying  them  beyond  the  reach  of 
comparison. 

The  terms  “science”  and  “scientific”  have  come,  in  modern 
times,  to  have  so  wide  a  range  of  application,  and  so  vague  a 
meaning,  that  (like  many  other  terms,  not  only  in  common 
speech,  but  also  in  philosophy  and  in  various  branches  of 
learning,  which  have  come  down  to  us  through  varying  usages) 
they  would  oppose  great  difficulties  to  any  attempts  at  de¬ 
fining  them  by  genus  and  difference,  or  otherwise  than  by 
enumerating  the  branches  of  knowledge  and,  the  facts,  or  rela¬ 
tions  of  the  facts,  to  which  usage  has  affixed  them  as  names. 
Precision  in  proper  definition  being  then  impossible,  it  is  yet 
possible  to  give  to  these  terms  so  general  a  meaning  as  to  cover 
all  the  knowledge  to  which  they  are  usually  applied,  and  still 
to  exclude  much  besides.  As  the  terms  thus  defined  coincide 
with  what  I  propose  to  show  as  the  character  of  the  knowledge 
peculiar  to  men,  or  which  distinguishes  the  minds  of  men  from 
those  of  other  animals,  I  will  begin  with  this  definition.  In  sci¬ 
ence  and  in  scientific  facts  there  is  implied  a  conscious  purpose 
of  including  particular  facts  under  general  facts,  and  the  less 
general  under  the  more  general  ones.  Science,  in  the  modern 
use  of  the  term,  consists,  essentially,  of  a  knowledge  of  things 
and  events  either  as  effects  of  general  causes,  or  as  instances  of 
general  classes,  rules,  or  laws;  or  even  as  isolated  facts  of 
which  the  class,  law,  rule,  or  cause  is  sought.  The  conscious 
purpose  of  arriving  at  general  facts  and  at  an  adequate  state¬ 
ment  of  them  in  language,  or  of  bringing  particular  facts  under 


20  6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


explicit  general  ones,  determines  for  any  knowledge  a  scientific 
character. 

Many  of  our  knowledges  and  judgments  from  experience  in 
practical  matters  are  not  so  reduced,  or  sought  to  be  reduced, 
to  explicit  principles,  or  have  not  a  theoretical  form,  since  the 
major  premises,  or  general  principles,  of  our  judgments  are  not 
consciously  generalized  by  us  in  forms  of  speech.  Even  mat¬ 
ters  not  strictly  practical,  or  which  would  be  merely  theoretical 
in  their  bearing  on  conduct,  if  reduced  to  a  scientific  form,  like 
many  of  the  judgments  of  common-sense,  for  example,  are  not 
consciously  referred  by  us  to  explicit  principles,  though  derived, 
like  science,  from  experience,  and  even  from  special  kinds  of 
experience,  like  that  of  a  man  of  business,  or  that  of  a  profes¬ 
sional  adept.  We  are  often  led  by  being  conscious  of  a  sign  of 
anything  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  the  thing  itself,  either 
past,  present,  or  prospective,  without  having  any  distinct  and 
general  apprehension  of  the  connection  of  the  sign  and  thing, 
or  any  recognition  of  the  sign  under  the  general  character  of  a 
sign.  Not  only  are  the  judgments  of  common-sense  in  men, 
both  the  inherited  and  acquired  ones,  devoid  of  heads,  or  major 
premises  (such  as  “All  men  are  mortal”),  in  deductive  infer¬ 
ence,  and  devoid  also  of  distinctly  remembered  details  of  ex¬ 
perience  in  the  inferences  of  induction,  but  it  is  highly  probable 
that  this  is  all  but  exclusively  the  character  of  the  knowledges 
and  judgments  of  the  lower  animals.  Language,  strictly  so 
called,  which  some  of  these  animals  also  have,  or  signs  pur¬ 
posely  used  for  communication,  is  not  only  required  for  scientific 
knowledge,  but  a  second  step  of  generalization  is  needed,  and  is 
made  through  reflection,  by  which  this  use  of  a  sign  is  itself 
made  an  object  of  attention,  and  the  sign  is  recognized  in  its 
general  relation?  to  what  it  signifies,  and  to  what  it  has  signified 
in  the  past,  and  will  signify  in  the  future.  It  is  highly  improba¬ 
ble  that  such  a  knowledge  of  knowledge,  or  such  a  recognition, 
belongs  in  any  considerable,  or  effective,  degree  to  even  the 
most  intelligent  of  the  lower  animals,  or  even  to  the  lowest  of 
the  human  race.  This  is  what  is  properly  meant  by  being  “ra¬ 
tional,”  or  being  a  “  rational  animal.”  It  is  what  I  have  preferred 
to  call  “ scientific  ”  knowledge;  since  the  growing  vagueness  and 


E VOL UTIOiV  OF  SELF- CONSCIOUSNESS . 


207 


breadth  of  application  common  to  all  ill-comprehended  words 
(like  “Positivism”  in  recent  times)  have  given  to  “scientific” 
the  meaning  probably  attached  at  first  to  “rational.”  This 
knowledge  comes  from  reflecting  on  what  we  know  in  the  com¬ 
mon-sense,  or  semi-instinctive  form,  or  making  what  we  know  a 
field  of  renewed  research,  observation,  and  analysis  in  the  gen¬ 
eralization  of  major  premises.  The  line  of  distinction  between 
such  results  of  reflection,  or  between  scientific  knowledge  and 
the  common-sense  form  of  knowledge,  is  not  simply  the  divid¬ 
ing  line  between  the  minds  of  men  and  those  of  other  animals ; 
but  is  that  which  divides  the  knowledge  produced  by  outward 
attention  from  that  which  is  further  produced  by  reflective  at¬ 
tention.  The  former,  throughout  a  considerable  range  of  the 
higher  intelligent  animals,  involves  veritable  judgments  of  a 
complex  sort.  It  involves  combinations  of  minor  premises 
leading  to  conclusions  through  implicit  major  premises  in  the 
enthymematic  reasonings,  commonly  employed  in  inferences 
from  signs  and  likelihoods,  as  in  prognostications  of  the 
weather,  or  in  orientations  with  many  animals.  This  knowl¬ 
edge  belongs  both  to  men  and  to  the  animals  next  to  men  in 
intelligence,  though  in  unequal  degrees. 

So  far  as  logicians  are  correct  in  regarding  an  enthymeme  as 
a  reasoning,  independently  of  its  statement  in  words ;  or  in 
regarding  as  a  rational  process  the  passing  from  such  a  sign  as 
the  human  nature  of  Socrates  to  the  inference  that  he  will 
die,  through  the  data  of  experience  concerning  the  mortality 
of  other  men, — data  which  are  neither  distinctly  remembered 
in  detail  nor  generalized  explicitly  in  the  formula,  “  all  men  are 
mortal,”  but  are  effective  only  in  making  mortality  a  more  or 
less  clearly  understood  part  of  the  human  nature,  that  is,  in 
making  it  one  of  the  attributes  suggested  by  the  name  “  man,” 
yet  not  separated  from  the  essential  attributes  by  the  contrasts 
of  subject  and  attributes  in  real  predication, — so  far,  I  say,  as 
this  can  be  regarded  as  a  reasoning,  or  a  rational  process,  so 
far  observation  shows  that  the  more  intelligent  dumb  animals 
reason,  or  are  rational.  But  this  involves  great  vagueness  or 
want  of  that  precision  in  the  use  of  signs  which  »the  antitheses 
of  essential  and  accidental  attributes  and  that  of  proper  pred- 


/ 


208  philosophical  discussions. 

ication  secure.  There  is  little,  or  no,  evidence  to  show  that 

# 

the  animals  which  learn,  to  some  extent,  to  comprehend  hu¬ 
man  speech  have  an  analytical  comprehension  of  real  general 
propositions,  or  of  propositions  in  which  both  subject  and  pred¬ 
icate  are  general  terms  and  differ  in  meaning.  A  merely  ver¬ 
bal  general  proposition,  declaring  only  the  equivalence  of  two 
general  names,  might  be  comprehended  by  such  minds,  if  it 
could  be  made  of  sufficient  interest  to  attract  their  attention. 
But  this  is  extremely  doubtful,  and  it  would  not  be  as  a  propo¬ 
sition,  with  its  contrasts  of  essential  and  added  elements  of  con¬ 
ception  that  it  would  be  comprehended.  It  would  be,  in 
effect,  only  repeating  in  succession  two  general  names  of  the 
same  class  of  objects.  Such  minds  could,  doubtless,  compre¬ 
hend  a  single  class  of  objects,  or  an  indefinite  number  of  re¬ 
sembling  things  by  several  names;  that  is,  several  signs  of  such 
a  class  would  recall  it  to  their  thoughts,  or  revive  a  represen¬ 
tative  image  of  it ;  and  they  would  thus  be  aware  of  the  equiv¬ 
alence  of  these  signs ;  but  they  would  not  attach  precision  of 
meaning  and  different  degrees  of  generality  to  them,  or  regard 
one  name  as  the  name  or  sign  of  another  name ;  as  when  we 
define  a  triangle  to  be  a  rectilinear  figure,  and  a  figure  of  three  r 
sides. 

Only  one  degree  of  generality  is,  however,  essential  to  infer¬ 
ence  from  signs,  or  in  enthymematic  reasoning.  Moreover, 
language  in  its  relation  to  thought  does  not  consist  exclusively 
of  spoken,  or  written,  or  imagined  words,  but  of  signs  in  gen¬ 
eral,  and,  essentially,  of  internal  images  or  successions  of  ima¬ 
ges,  which  are  the  representative  imaginations  of  objects  and 
their  relations ;  imaginations  which  severally  stand  for  each 
and  all  of  the  particular  objects  or  relations  of  a  kind.  Such 
are  the  visual  imaginations  called  up  by  spoken  or  written  con¬ 
crete  general  names  of  visible  objects,  as  “dog”  or  “tree”; 
which  are  vague  and  feeble  as  images,  but  effective  as  notative, 
directive,  or  guiding  elements  in  thought.  These  are  the  in¬ 
ternal  signs  of  things  and  events,  and  are  instruments  of  thought 
in  judgment  and  reasoning,  not  only  with  dumb  animals  but 
also  with  men,  in  whom  they  are  supplemented,  rather  than 
supplanted,  by  names.  But  being  of  feeble  intensity,  and  little 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


209 


under  the  influence  of  distinct  attention  or  control  of  the  will, 
compared  to  actual  perceptions  and  to  the  voluntary  move¬ 
ments  of  utterance  and  gesture,  their  nature  has  been  but  dimly 
understood  even  by  metaphysicians,  who  are  still  divided  into 
two  schools  in  logic, — the  conceptualists  and  the  nominalists. 
The  “concepts”  of  the  former  are  really  composed  of  these 
vague  and  feeble  notative  images,  or  groups  of  images,  to 
which  clearness  and  distinctness  of  attention  are  given  by  their 
associations  with  outward  (usually  vocal)  signs.  Hence  a  sec¬ 
ond  degree  of  observation  and  generalization  upon  these  im¬ 
ages,  as  objects  in  reflective  thought,  cannot  be  readily  realized, 
independently  of  what  would  be  the  results  of  such  observa¬ 
tions,  namely,  their  associations  with  outward  signs.  Even  in 
the  most  intelligent  dumb  animal  they  are  probably  so  feeble 
that  they  cannot  be  associated  with  outward  signs  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  make  these  distinctly  appear  as  substitutes,  or 
signs  equivalent  to  them. 

So  far  as  images  act  in  governing  trains  of  thought  and  reason¬ 
ing,  they  act  as  signs;  but,  with  reference  to  the  more  vivid  out¬ 
ward  signs,  they  are,  in  the  animal  mind,  merged  in  the  things 
signified,  like  stars  in  the  light  of  the  sun.  Hence,  language, 
in  its  narrower  sense,  as  the  instrument  of  reflective  thought, 
appears  to  depend  directly  on  the  intensity  of  significant,  or 
representative,  images;  since  the  power  to  attend  to  these  and 
intensify  them  still  further,  at  the  same  time  that  an  equivalent 
outward  sign  is  an  object  of  attention,  would  appear  to  depend 
solely  on  the  relative  intensities  of  the  two  states,  or  on  the 
relations  of  intensity  in  perception  and  imagination,  or  in 
original  and  revived  impressions.  The  direct  power  of  atten¬ 
tion  to  intensify  a  revived  impression  in  imagination  does  not 
appear  to  be  different  in  kind  from  the  power  of  attention  in 
perception,  or  in  outward  impressions  generally.  But  this 
direct  power  would  be  obviously  aided  by  the  indirect  action  of 
attention  when  fixed  by  an  outward  sign,  provided  attention 
could  be  directed  to  both  at  the  same  time;  as  a  single  glance 
may  comprehend  in  one  field  of  view  the  moon  or  the  brighter 
planets  and  the  sun,  since  the  moon  or  planet  is  not  hidden 
like  :he  stars,  by  the  glare  of  day. 


f 


210 


PHIL  OS  OPHICA  L  DISC  USSIONS. 


As  soon,  then,  as  the  progress  of  animal  intelligence  through 
an  extension  of  the  range  in  its  powers  of  memory,  or  in  re¬ 
vived  impressions,  together  with  a  corresponding  increase  in 
the  vividness  of  these  impressions,  has  reached  a  certain  point 
(a  progress  in  itself  useful,  and  therefore  likely  to  be  secured 
in  some  part  of  nature,  as  one  among  its  numerous  grounds  of 
selection,  or  lines  of  advantage),  it  becomes  possible  for  such 
an  intelligence  to  fix  its  attention  on  a  vivid  outward  sign, 
without  losing  sight  of,  or  dropping  out  of  distinct  attention, 
an  image  or  revived  impression ;  which  latter  would  only  serve, 
in  case  of  its  spontaneous  revival  in  imagination,  as  a  sign  of  the 
'same  thing,  or  the  same  event.  Whether  the  vivid  outward 
sign  be  a  real  object  or  event,  of  which  the  revived  image  is 
the  counterpart,  or  whether  it  be  a  sign  in  a  stricter  meaning 
of  the  term,— that  is,  some  action,  figure,  or  utterance,  associa¬ 
ted  either  naturally  or  artificially  with  all  similar  objects  or 
events,  and,  consequently,  with  the  revived  and  representative 
image  of  them, — whatever  the  character  of  this  outward  sign 
may  be,  provided  the  representative  image,  or  inward  sign, 
still  retains,  in  distinct  consciousness,  its  power  as  such,  then 
the  outward  sign  may  be  consciously  recognized  as  a  substi¬ 
tute  for  the  inward  one,  and  a  consciousness  of  simultaneous 
internal  and  external  suggestion,  or  significance,  might  be  re¬ 
alized;  and  the  contrast  of  thoughts  and  things,  at  least  in 
their  power  of  suggesting  that  of  which  they  may  be  coinci¬ 
dent  signs,  could,  for  the  first  time,  be  perceptible.  This  would 
plant  the  germ  of  the  distinctively  human  form  of  self-conscious¬ 
ness. 

Previously  to  such  a  simultaneous  consciousness  of  move¬ 
ments  in  imagination  and  movements  in  the  same  direction 
arising  from  perception,  realized  through  the  comparative  vivid¬ 
ness  of  the  former,  all  separate  and  distinct  consciousness  of 
the  inward  sign  would  be  eclipsed,  and  attention  would  pass  on 
to  the  thought  suggested  by  the  outward  sign.  A  similar  phe¬ 
nomenon  is  frequently  observed  with  us  in  successions  of  in¬ 
ward  suggestions,  or  trains  of  thought.  The  attention  often 
skips  intermediate  steps  in  a  train,  or  appears  to  do  so.  At  least, 
the  memory  of  steps,  which  appear  essential  to  its  rational  ccher- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


2  1 1 


ency,  has  ceased  when  we  revive  the  train  or  repeat  it  volun¬ 
tarily.  This  happens  even  when  only  a  few  moments  have 
elapsed  between  the  train  and  its  repetition.  Some  writers 
assert  that  the  omitted  steps  are  immediately  forgotten  in 
such  cases,  on  account  of  their  feebleness, — as  we  forget  im¬ 
mediately  the  details  of  a  view  which  we  have  just  seen,  and 
remember  only  its  salient  points;  while  others  maintain  that  the 
missing  steps  are  absent  from  consciousness,  even  in  the  origi¬ 
nal  and  spontaneous  movements  of  the  train;  or  are  present 
only  through  an  unconscious  agency,  both  in  the  train  and  its 
revival.  This  being  a  question  of  memory,  reference  cannot 
be  made  to  memory  itself  for  the  decision  of  it.  To  decide 
whether  a  thing  is  completely  forgotten,  or  has  never  been  ex¬ 
perienced,  we  have  no  other  resource  than  rational  analogy, 
which,  in  the  present  case,  appears  to  favor  the  theory  of 
oblivion,  rather  than  that  of  latent  mental  ties  and  actions; 
since  oblivion  is  a  vera  causa  sufficient  to  account  for  the  dif¬ 
ference  between  such  revived  trains  and  those  in  which  no  steps 
are  missed,  or  could  be  rationally  supposed  to  have  been  pres¬ 
ent.  The  theory  of  “  latent  mental  agency  ”  appears  to  con¬ 
found  the  original  spontaneous  movement  of  the  train  with 
what  appears  as  its  representative  in  its  voluntary  revival. 
This  revival,  in  some  cases,  really  involves  new  conditions, 
and  is  not,  therefore,  to  be  rationally  interpreted  as  a  pre¬ 
cisely  true  recollection.  If  repeated  often,  it  will  establish 
direct  and  strong  associations  of  contiguity  between  salient 
steps  in  the  train  which  were  connected  at  first  by  feebler 
though  still  conscious  steps.  The  complete  obliteration  of 
these  is  analogous,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  loss,  in  primary 
forms  of  memory,  of  details  which  are  present  to  conscious¬ 
ness  in  actual  first  perceptions. 

If,  as  more  frequently  happens,  the  whole  train,  with  all. 
its  steps  of  suggestion,  is  recalled  in  the  voluntary  revival  of- 
it  (without  any  sense  of  missing  steps),  the  feebler  interme¬ 
diate  links,  that  in  other  cases  are  obliterated,  would  corre^ 
spond  to  the  feebler,  though  (in  the  more  advanced  animal 
intelligences)  comparatively  vivid,  mental  signs  which  have  in- 
them  the  germ,  as  I  have  said,  of  the  human  form  of  self-con- 


212 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


sciousness.  The  growth  of  this  consciousness,  its  development 
from  this  germ,  is  a  more  direct  process  than  the  production  of 
the  germ  itself,  which  is  only  incidental  to  previous  utilities 
in  the  power  cr  memory.  Thought,  henceforward,  may  be  an 
object  to  thought  in  its  distinct  contrast,  as  an  inward  sign, 
with  the  outward  and  more  vivid  sign  of  that  which  they  both 
suggest,  or  revive  from  memory.  This  contrast  is  heightened  if 
the  outward  one  is  more  strictly  a  sign;  that  is,  is  not  the  per¬ 
ception  of  an  object  or  event,  of  which  the  inward  and  repre¬ 
sentative  image  is  a  counterpart,  but  is  of  a  different  nature,  for 
instance  some  movement  or  gesture  or  vocal  utterance,  or  some 
graphic  sign,  associated  by  contiguity  with  the  object  or  event, 
or,  more  properly,  with  its  representative  image.  The  “con¬ 
cept”  so  formed  is  not  a  thing  complete  in  itself,  but  is  essen¬ 
tially  a  cause,  or  step,  in  mental  trains.  The  outward  sign,  the 
image,  or  inward  sign,  and  the  suggested  thought,  or  image, 
form  a  train,  like  a  train  which  might  be  wholly  within  the  imagi¬ 
nation.  This  train  is  present,  in  all  its  three  constituents,  to  the 
first,  or  immediate,  consciousness,  in  all  degrees  of  intelligence ; 
but  in  the  revival  of  it,  in  the  inferior  degrees  of  intelligence, 
the  middle  term  is  obliterated,  as  in  the  trains  of  thought  above 
considered.  The  animal  has  in  mind  only  an  image  of  the 
sign,  previously  present  in  perception,  followed  now  imme- 
diately  by  an  image  of  what  was  suggested  through  the  oblit¬ 
erated  mental  image.  But  the  latter,  in  the  higher  degrees  of 
intelligence,  is  distinctly  recalled  as  a  middle  term.  In  the 
revival  of  past  trains,  which  were  first  produced  through  out¬ 
ward  signs,  the  dumb  animal  has  no  consciousness  of  there 
having  been  present  more  than  one  of  the  two  successive  signs, 
which,  together  with  the  suggested  image,  formed  the  actual 
train  in  its  first  occurrence.  The  remembered  outward  sign  is 
now  a  thought,  or  image,  immediately  suggesting  or  recalling 
that  which  was  originally  suggested  by  a  feebler  intermediate 
step. 

In  pure  imaginations,  not  arising  by  actual  connections 
through  memory,  the  two  terms  are  just  the  same  with  animals 
as  in  real  memory;  except  that  they  are  not  felt  to  be  the 
representatives  of  a  former  real  connection.  The  contrast  of 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


213 


the  real  and  true  with  the  imaginary  and  false  is,  then,  the  only 
general  one  of  which  such  a  mind  could  be  aware  in  the  phe- 
nomena  of  thought.  The  contrast  of  thought  itself  with  per¬ 
ception,  or  with  the  actual  outward  sign  and  suggestion  of  the 
thought,  is  realized  only  by  the  revival  in  memory  of  the  feeble^ 
connecting  link.  This  effects  a  contrast  not  only  between  what 
is  real  and  what  is  merely  imaginary,  but  also  between  what  is 
out  of  the  mind  and  what  is  within  it.  The  minute  difference 
in  the  force  of  memory,  on  which  this  link  in  the  chain  of  atten¬ 
tion  at  first  depended,  was  one  of  immense  consequence  to  man. 
This  feeble  link  is  the  dividing  region,  interval,  or  cleft  be¬ 
tween  the  two  more  vivid  images;  one  being  more  vivid  as  a* 
direct  recollection  of  an  actual  outward  impression,  and  the 
other  being  more  vivid,  or  salient,  from  the  interest  or  the  mo¬ 
tives  which  gave  it  the  prominence  of  a  thought  demanding 
attention ;  either  as  a  memory  of  a  past  object  or  event  of  in¬ 
terest,  or  the  image  of  something  in  the  immediate  future. 
The  disappearance  altogether  of  this  feeble  link  would,  as  I 
have  said,  take  from  the  images  connected  by  it  all  contrast 

1 

with  any  pair  of  steps  in  a  train,  except  a  consciousness  of  re¬ 
ality  in  the  connection  of  these  images  in  a  previous  expe¬ 
rience.* 

*  It  appears,  at  first  sight,  a  rash  hypothesis  to  imagine  so  extensive  an  action  of  illu¬ 
sion  as  I  have  supposed  in  the  revivals  of  memory, — a  self-vouching  faculty  of  which,  in 
general,  the  testimony  cannot  be  questioned, — since  each  recall  asserts  for  itself  an 
identity  with  what  is  recalled  by  it,  either  in  past  outward  experiences  or  in  previous  re¬ 
vivals  of  them.  But  the  hypothesis  of  uniform,  or  frequent,  illusions  in  individual  judg¬ 
ments  of  memory  is  not  made  in  contradiction  of  experiences  in  general,  includ¬ 
ing  those  remembered,  when  reduced  to  rational  consistency.  The  familiar  fact  that  no 
memory,  even  of  an  immediately  past  experience,  is  an  adequate  reproduction  of  every¬ 
thing  that  must  have  been  present  in  it  in  actual  consciousness,  and  must  have  received 
more  or  less  attention,  is  familiarly  verified  by  repeating  the  remembered  experiences. 
Memory  itself  thus  testifies  to  its  own  fallibility.  But  this  is  not  all.  Illusion  in  an  op¬ 
posite  direction,  the  more  than  adequate  revival  of  some  experiences,  so  far  as  vividness 
and  apparently  remembered  details  are  concerned,  affects  our  memories  of  dreams,  de¬ 
monstrably  in  some,  presumably  in  many.  What  is  commonly  called  a  dream  is  not 
what  is  present  to  the  imagination  in  sleep,  but  what  is  believed,  often  illusively,  to  have 
been  present;  and  is,  doubtless,  in  general,  more  vivid  in  memory  and  furnished  with 
more  numerous  details,  owing  to  the  livelier  action  of  imagination  in  waking  moments. 
The  liveliness  of  an  actual  dream  is  rather  in  its  dominant  feeling  or  interest  than  in  its 
Images. 

The  order  of  internal  events,  or  the  order  of  suggestion  in  actual  dreams,  is  often  re¬ 
versed  in  the  waking  memories  of  them.  A  dream  very  long  and  full  of  details,  as  it 
appears  in  memory,  and  taking  many  words  to  relate,  is  sometimes  recalled  from  the 


214 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


To  exemplify  this  somewhat  abstruse  analysis,  let  us  examine 
what,  according  to  it,  would  be  the  mental  movements  in  a 

suggestions  and  trains  of  thought  in  sleep  which  are  comprised  in  the  impressions  of  a 
few  moments.  Such  a  dream  usually  ends  in  some  startling  or  interesting  event,  which 
was  a  misinterpretation  in  sleep  of  some  real  outward  impression,  as  a  loud  or  unusua 
noise,  or  some  inward  sensation,  like  one  of  hunger,  thirst,  heat,  cold,  or  numbness, 
which  really  stood  in  sleep  at  the  beginning  of  the  misremembered  train  of  thought,  in¬ 
stead  of  constituting  its  denouement  in  a  remembered  series  of  real  incidents.  The  re¬ 
membered  dream  seems  to  have  been  an  isolated  series  of  such  incidents,  succeeding 
each  other  in  the  natural  order  of  experience ;  but  this  appearance  may  well  arise  from 
the  absence  of  any  remembered  indications  of  a  contrary  order;  or  from  the  absence,  on 
one  hand,  of  a  consciousness  in  sleep  of  anything  more  vivid  than  the  actual  dream, 
and  the  real  feebleness,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the  dream  itself  in  respect  to  everything 
in  it  except  the  salient  incident,  or  the  dominant  interest,  which  caused  it  to  be  remem¬ 
bered  along  with  the  feeble  sketch  of  suggested  incidents.  Surprise  at  incongruities  in 
parts  of  trains  often  constitutes  this  interest. 

If  the  waking  imagination  really  fills  out  this  sketch,  and  avouches  the  whole  without 
check  from  anything  really  remembered,  the  phenomenon  would  be  perfectly  accordant 
with  what  is  known  of  the  dealings  of  imagination  with  real  experiences,  and  with  what 
is  to  be  presumed  of  the  comparative  feebleness  of  its  powers  in  sleep.  A  remembered 
dream  would  thus  be,  in  some  cases,  a  twofold  illusion, — an  illusion  in  sleep  arising  from 
misinterpreted  sensations,  and  an  illusion  in  memory  concerning  what  was  actually  the 
train  of  thoughts  excited  by  the  mistake,  the  train  being  in  fact  often  inverted  in  such 
an  apparent  recollection.  Savages  and  the  insane  believe  their  dreams  to  be  real  expe¬ 
riences.  The  civilized  and  sane  man  believes  them  to  be  true  memories  of  illusions  in 
sleep.  A  step  farther  in  the  application  of  the  general  tests  of  true  experience  would 
reduce  some  dreams  to  illusive  memories  of  the  illusions  of  sleep. 

There  does  not  appear  on  analysis,  made  in  conformity  to  the  reality  of  experiences  in 
general,  that  there  is  any  intrinsic  difference  between  a  memory  and  an  imagination,  the 
reality  of  the  former  being  dependent  on  extrinsic  relations,  and  the  outward  checks  of 
other  memories.  Memory,  as  a  whole,  vouches  for  itself,  and  for  all  its  mutually  con¬ 
sistent  details,  and  banishes  mere  imaginations  from  its  province,  not  as  foreigners,  but 
on  account  of  their  lawlessness,  or  incoherence  with  the  rest  of  its  subjects,  and  it  does  so 
through  the  exercise  of  what  is  called  the  judgments  of  experience,  which  are  in  fact 
mnemonic  summaries  of  experiences  (including  instinctive  tendencies).  The  imagina¬ 
tions  of  the  insane  are  in  insurrection  against  this  authority  of  memory  in  general  ex¬ 
perience,  or  against  what  is  familiarly  called  “reason.”  When  sufficiently  vivid,  01 
powerful,  and  numerous,  they  usurp  the  powers  of  state,  or  the  authority  of  memory 
and  free  intelligent  volition.  “Reason”  is  then  said  to  be  “dethroned.”.- 

The  unreality  of  some  dreams  would  thus  appear  to  be  more  complete  than  they  are 
in  general  discovered  to  be  by  mature,  sane,  and  reflective  thought,  and  by  indirect  ob¬ 
servations  upon  their  conditions  and  phenomena.  The  supposition  of  a  similar  illusion 
in  the  phenomena  of  reflection  on  the  immediately  past,  or  passing,  impressions  of  the 
mind  affords  an  explanation  of  a  curious  phenomenon,  not  uncommon  in  waking  mo¬ 
ments,  which  is  referred  to  by  many  writers  on  psychology,  namely,  the  phenomenon  of 
experiencing  in  minute  detail  what  appears  also  to  be  recalled  as  a  past  experience. 
Some  writers  have  attempted  to  explain  this  as  a  veritable  revival,  by  a  passing  experi¬ 
ence,  of  a  really  past  and  very  remote  one,  either  in  our  progenitors,  as  some  evolution¬ 
ists  suppose;  or  in  a  previous  life,  or  in  some  state  of  individual  existence,  otherwise 
unremembered,  as  the  mystic  prefers  to  believe;  a  revival  affected  by  an  actual  co¬ 
incidence,  in  many  minute  particulars,  of  a  present  real  experience  with  a  really  past 
one.  But  if  a  passing  real  experience  could  be  supposed  to  be  divided,  so  to  speak,  or 
to  make  a  double  impression  in  memory, — one  the  ordinary  impression  of  what  is  imme- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


2IC 

man, — let  him  be  a  sportsman, — and  a  domestic  animal, — let 
it  be  his  dog, — on  hearing  a  name, — let  it  be  the  name  of 
some  game,  as  “  fox.”  The  general  character  of  the  phenom¬ 
ena  in  both  would  be  the  same  on  the  actual  first  hearing  of 
this  word.  The  word  would  suggest  a  mental  image  of  the 
fox,  then  its  movements  of  escape  from  its  hunters,  and  the 
thought  would  pass  on  and  dwell,  through  the  absorbing  in* 
terest  of  it,  on  the  hunter’s  movements  of  pursuit,  or  pass  on 
even  to  the  capture  and  destruction  of  the  game.  This  would, 
doubtless,  recall  to  the  minds  of  the  hunter  and  his  hound  one 
or  more  real  and  distinctly  remembered  incidents  of  the  sort. 
Now  if  we  suppose  this  train  of  thought  to  be  revived  (as  un¬ 
doubtedly  it  is  capable  of  being,  both  in  the  man  and  the  dog), 
it  will  be  the  same  in  the  man’s  mind  as  on  its  first  production  ; 
except  that  the  name  “fox”  will  be  thought  of  as  an  auditory, 
or  else  a  vocal  image,  instead  of  being  heard ;  and  the  visual 
image  of  the  fox  will  be  recalled  by  it  with  all  the  succeeding 
parts  of  the  repeated  train.  But  in  the  dog,  either  the  audi¬ 
tory  image  of  the  name  will  not  be  recalled,  since  the  vocal 
image  does  not  exist  in  his  mind  to  aid  the  recall  (his  volun¬ 
tary  vocal  powers  not  being  capable  of  forming  it  even  in  the 
first  instance) ;  or  if  such  an  auditory  image  arises,  the  repre¬ 
sentative  visual  or  olfactory #  one  will  not  appear  in  distinct 
consciousness.  His  attention  will  pass  at  once  from  either  of 
these  signs,  but  from  one  only  to  the  more  intense  and  inter¬ 
esting  parts  of  the  train, — to  the  pursuit  and  capture  of  the 
game,  or  to  actually  remembered  incidents  of  the  kind.  Ei¬ 
ther  the  first  or  the  immediate  sign  will  remain  in  oblivion. 

Hence  the  dog’s  dreams,  or  trains  of  thought,  when  they  are 
revivals  of  previous  trains,  or  when  they  rise  into  prominent 
consciousness  in  consequence  of  having  been  passed  through 


diately  past,  and  the  other  a  dream-like  impression  filled  out  on  its  immediate  revival  in 
reflection  with  the  same  details, — the  supposition  would  be  in  accordance  with  what  is 
really  known  of  some  dreams,  and  would,  therefore,  be  more  probable  than  the  above 
explanations.  It  is  possible  to  trust  individual  memories  too  far,  even  in  respect  to  what 
is  immediately  past,  as  it  is  to  trust  too  far  a  single  sense  in  respect  to  what  is  imme 
diately  present.  Rational  consistency,  in  all  experiences,  or  in  experience  on  the  whole 
is  the  ultimate  test  of  reality  or  truth  in  our  judgments,  whether  these  are  “intuitive,’ 
or  consciously  derived. 

*  Images  in  dogs  are  supposed  to  depend  largely  on  the  sense  of  smell. 


i 


21 6 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISC  US S IONS. 


before,  omit  or  skip  over  the  steps  which  at  first  served  only 
as  suggesting  and  connecting  signs,  following  now  only  the 
associations  of  contiguity,  established  in  the  first  occurrence  of 
the  train  between  its  more  prominent  parts.  The  suggested 
thought  eclipses  by  its  glare  the  suggesting  one.  The  interest 
of  an  image,  or  its  powrer  to  attract  attention  and  increased 
force,  depends  in  the  dog  only  on  its  vividness  as  a  memory, 
or  as  a  future  purpose  or  event,  and  very  little,  if  at  all,  on  its 
relations  and  agency  as  a  sign.  Images,  as  well  as  outward 
signs,  serve,  as  I  have  said,  in  the  dumb  animals  as  well  as  in 
man  in  this  capacity ;  but  this  is  not  recognized  by  the  animal, 
since  those  parts  of  a  train  which  serve  only  as  signs  are  too 
feeble  to  be  revived  in  the  repeated  train ;  and  new  associa¬ 
tions  of  mere  contiguity  in  the  prominent  parts  of  it  take  their 
places.  All  that  would  be  recognized  in  the  animal  mind  by 
reflection  on  thought  as  thought,  or  independently  of  its  reality 
as  a  memory,  an  anticipation,  or  a  purpose,  would  be  its  un¬ 
reality,  or  merely  imaginary  character. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  a  greater  intensity,  arising  from  a  greater 
power  of  simple  memory,  should  revive  the  feebler  parts  in  re¬ 
peated  trains  of  thought,  to  the  degree  of  attracting  attention 
to  them,  and  thus  bringing  them  into  a  more  distinct  and  vivid 
consciousness,  there  might  arise  an  interest  as  to  what  they  are, 
as  to  wThat  are  their  relations,  and  where  they  belong,  which 
would  be  able  to  inspire  and  guide  an  act  of  distinct  reflection. 
A  thought  might  thus  be  determined  as  a  representative  mental 
image ;  and  such  acts  of  reflection,  inspired  also  by  other  mo¬ 
tives  more  powerful  than  mere  inquisitiveness,  would  by  ob¬ 
servation,  analysis,  and  generalization  (the  counterparts  of 
such  outward  processes  in  the  merely  animal  mind)  bring  all 
such  representative  images,  together  with  real  memories  and 
anticipations,  into  a  single  group,  or  subjective  connection  4 
The  recognition  of  them  in  this  connection  is  the  knowledge 
of  them  as  my  thoughts,  or  our  thoughts,  or  as  phenomena  of 
the  mind. 

When  a  thought,  or  an  outward  expression,  acts  in  an  ani*- 
mal’s  mind  or  in  a  man’s,  in  the  capacity  of  a  sign,  it  carries 
forward  the  movements  of  a  train,  and  directs  attention  away 


E  VOL  UTION  OF  SELF-  CO  NS  CIO  US  NESS. 


217 


from  itself  to  what  it  signifies  or  suggests ;  and  consciousness 
is  concentrated  on  the  latter.  But  being  sufficiently  vivid  in 
itself  to  engage  distinct  attention,  it  determines  a  new  kind  of 
action,  and  a  new  faculty  of  observation,  of  which  the  cerebral 
hemispheres  appear  to  be  the  organs.  From  the  action  of 
these,  in  their  more  essential  powers  in  memory  and  imagi¬ 
nation,  the  objects  or  materials  of  reflection  are  also  derived. 
Reflection  would  thus  be,  not  what  most  metaphysicians  ap¬ 
pear  to  regard  it,  a  fundamentally  new  faculty  in  man,  as 
elementary  and  primordial  as  memory  itself,  or  the  power  of 
abstractive  attention,  or  the  function  of  signs  and  represen 
tative  images  in  generalization ;  but  it  would  be  determined  in 
its  contrasts  with  other  mental  faculties  by  the  nature  of  its 
object0.  On  its  subjective  side  it  would  be  composed  of  the 
same  mental  faculties — namely,  memory,  attention,  abstraction 
— as  those  which  are  employed  in  the  primary  use  of  the  senses. 
It  would  be  engaged  upon  what  these  senses  have  furnished  to 
memory;  but  would  act  as  independently  of  any  orders  of 
grouping  and  succession  presented  by  them,  as  the  several 
senses  themselves  do  of  one  another.  To  this  extent,  reflec¬ 
tion  is  a  distinct  faculty,  and  though,  perhaps,  not  peculiar  to 
man,  is  in  him  so  prominent  and  marked  in  its  effects  on  the 
development  of  the  individual  mind,  that  it  may  be  regarded 
as  his  most  essential  and  elementary  mental  distinction  in 
kind.  For  differences  of  degrees  in  causes  may  make  differ¬ 
ences  of  kinds  in  effects. 

Motives  more  powerful  than  mere  inquisitiveness  about  the 
feebler  steps  or  mere  thoughts  of  a  revived  train,  and  more 
efficient  in  concentrating  attention  upon  them,  and  upon  their 
functions  as  signs,  or  suggesting  images,  would  spring  from 
the  social  nature  of  the  animal,  from  the  uses  of  mental  com¬ 
munication  between  the  members  of  a 'community,  and  from 
the  desire  to  communicate,  which  these  uses  would  create. 
And  just  as  an  outward  sign  associated  with  a  mental  im¬ 
age  aids  by  its  intensity  in  fixing  attention  upon  the  latter, 
so  the  uses  of  such  outward  signs  and  the  motives  connected 
with  their  employment  would  add  exte?isive  force,  or  interest, 
to  the  energy  of  attention  in  the  cognition  of  this  inward  sign ; 

10 


\ 


2l8 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


and  hence  would  aid  in  the  reference  of  it  and  its  sort  to  the 
subject  ego, — a  being  already  known,  or  distinguished  from 
other  beings,  as  that  which  wills,  desires,  and  feels.  That 
which  wills,  desires,  and  feels  is,  in  the  more  intelligent  do¬ 
mestic  animal,  known  by  the  proper  name,  which  the  animal 
recognizes  and  answers  to  by  its  actions,  and  is  a  conscious¬ 
ness  of  its  individuality.  It  is  not  known  or  recognized  by 
that  most  generic  name  “I”;  since  phenomena  common  to 
this  individual  and  to  others,  or  capable  of  being  made  com¬ 
mon  through  the  communications  of  language,  are  not  dis¬ 
tinctly  referred  to  the  individual  self  by  that  degree  of  abstract¬ 
ive  attention  and  precision  which  an  habitual  exercise  of  the 
faculty  of  reflection  is  required  to  produce.  But,  in  the  same 
manner,  the  word  “  world,”  which  includes  the  conscious  sub¬ 
ject  in  its  meaning,  would  fail  to  suggest  anything  more  to 
such  an  intelligence  than  more  concrete  terms  do, — such 
as  what  is  around,  within,  near,  or  distant  from  conscious¬ 
ness;  or  it  would  fail  to  suggest  the  whole  of  that  which  phi¬ 
losophers  divide  into  ego  and  non-ego ,  the  outward  and  inward 
worlds.  A  contrast  of  this  whole  to  its  parts,  however  divided 
in  predication,  or  the  antithesis  of  subject  and  attributes,  in  a 
divisible  unity  and  its  component  particulars,  would  not  be 
suggested  to  an  animal  mind  by  the  word  “  world.”  The 
“categories,”  or  forms  and  conditions  of  human  understanding, 
though  doubtless  innate  in  the  naturalist’s  sense  of  the  term, 
that  is  inherited,  are  only  the  ways  and  facilities  of  the  higher 
exercise  of  the  faculty  of  reflection.  They  are,  doubtless,  ways 
and  facilities  that  are  founded  on  the  ultimate  nature  of  mind; 
yet,  on  this  very  account,  are  universal,  though  only  potential 
in  the  animahmind  generally;  just  as  the  forms  and  conditions 
of  locomotion  are  generally  in  the  bodies  of  plants ;  forms  and 
conditions  founded  on  the  ultimate  natures  or  laws  of  motion, 
which  would  be  exemplified  in  plants,  if  they  also  had  the 
power  of  changing  their  positions,  and  are  indeed  exemplified 
in  those  forms  of  vegetable  life  that  are  transported,  such  as 
seeds,  or  can  move  and  plant  themselves,  like  certain  spores. 

The  world  of  self-conscious  intellectual  activity, — the  world 
of  mind, — has,  doubtless,  its  ultimate  unconditional  laws,  every- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


219 


where  exemplified  in  the  actual  phenomena  of  abstractive  and 
reflective  thought,  and  capable  of  being  generalized  in  the  re¬ 
flective  observations  of  the  philosopher,  and  applied  by  him  to 
the  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  thought  wherever  mani¬ 
fested  in  outward  expressions,  whether  in  his  fellow-men,  or  in 
the  more  intelligent  dumb  animals.  Memory,  in  the  effects 
of  its  more  powerful  and  vivid  revivals  in  the  more  intelli¬ 
gent  animals,  and  especially  in  the  case  of  large-brained  man, 
presents  this  new  world,  in  which  the  same  faculties  of  observa¬ 
tion,  analysis,  and  generalization  as  those  employed  by  intelli¬ 
gent  beings  in  general,  ascertain  the  marks  and  classes  of 
phenomena  strictly  mental,  and  divide  them,  as  a  whole  class, 
or  summum  ge?ius ,  from  those  of  the  outward  world.  The  dis¬ 
tinction  of  subject  and  object  becomes  thus  a  classification 
through  observation  and  analysis,  instead  of  the  intuitive  dis¬ 
tinction  it  is  supposed  to  be  by  most  metaphysicians.  Intui¬ 
tive  to  some  extent,  in  one  sense  of  the  word,  it  doubtless  is; 
that  is,  facilities  and  predispositions  to  associations,  which  are 
as  effective  as  repeated  experiences  and  observations  would  be, 
and  which  are  inherited  in  the  form  of  instincts,  doubtless  have 
much  to  do  in  bringing  to  pass  this  cognition,  as  well  as  many 
others,  which  appear  to  be  innate,  not  only  in  the  lower  ani¬ 
mals  but  also  in  man. 

The  very  different  aim  of  the  evolutionist  from  that  of  his 
opponents — the  latter  seeking  to  account  for  the  resemblances 
of  mental  actions  in  beings  supposed  to  be  radically  different 
in  their  mental  constitutions,  while  the  former  seeks  to  account 
for  the  differences  of  manifestation  in  fundamentally  similar 
mental  constitutions — gives,  in  the  theory  of  evolution,  a  philo¬ 
sophical  role  to  the  word  “  instinct,”  and  to  its  contrast  with  in¬ 
telligence,  much  inferior  to  that  which  this  contrast  has  had  in 
the  discussions  of  the  mental  faculties  of  animals.  For  the 
distinction  of  instinct  and  intelligence,  though  not  less  real  and 
important  in  the  classification  of  actions  in  psycho-zoology,  and 
as  important  even  as  that  of  animal  and  vegetable  is  in  general 
zoology,  or  the  distinctions  of  organic  and  inorganic,  living  and 
dead,  in  the  general  science  of  life,  is  yet,  like  these,  in  its  ap¬ 
plications  a  vague  and  ill-defined  distinction,  and  is  most  profit- 


220 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


ably  studied  in  the  subordinate  classes  of  actions,  and  in  the 
special  contrasts  which  are  summarized  by  it.  Under  the  nat¬ 
uralist’s  point  of  view,  the  contrasts  of  dead  and  living  matters, 
inorganic  and  organic  products,  vegetable  and  animal  forms 
and  functions,  automatic  and  sentient  movements,  instinctive 
and  intelligent  motives  and  actions,  are  severally  rough  divi¬ 
sions  of  series ,  which  are  clearly  enough  contrasted  in  their  ex¬ 
tremities,  but  ill  defined  at  their  points  of  division.  Thus,  we 
have  the  long  series  beginning  with  the  processes  of  growth, 
nutrition,  and  waste,  and  in  movements  independent  of  nervous 
connections,  and  continued  in  processes  in  which  sensations 
are  involved,  first  vaguely,  as  in  the  processes  of  digestion,  cir¬ 
culation,  and  the  general  stimulative  action  of  the  nervous  sys¬ 
tem;  then  distinctly,  as  in  the  stimulative  sensations  of  respi¬ 
ration,  winking,  swallowing,  coughing,  and  sneezing,  more  or 
less  under  general  control  or  the  action  of  the  will.  This  series 
is  continued,  again,  into  those  sensations,  impulses,  and  conse¬ 
quent  actions  which  are  wholly  controllable,  though  spontane¬ 
ously  arising;  and  thence  into  the  motives  to  action  which  are 
wholly  dependent  on,  or  involved  in,  the  immediate  controlling 
powers  of  the  will, — a  series  in  which  the  several  marks  of  dis¬ 
tinction  are  clearly  enough  designated  in  the  abstract,  as  the 
colors  of  the  spectrum  are  by  their  names,  but  are  not  clearly 
separated  in  the  concrete  applications  of  them. 

Again,  we  have  the  series  of  voluntary  actions,  beginning  at 
the  connections  between  perceptions,  emotions,  and  consequent 
actions,  which  are  strictly  instinctive.  These,  though  inherited, 
are  independent  of  the  effects  of  higher,  and  more  properly 
voluntary,  actions  in  the  individual’s  progenitors,  as  well  as  in 
himself.  When  they  are  not  simple  ultimate  and  universal 
laws  of  mental  natures,  or  elementary  mental  connections, 
they  are  combinations  produced  through  their  serviceableness 
to  life,  or  by  natural  selection  and  exercise,  that  is  in  the  same 
general  manner  in  which  bodily  organs,  posvers,  and  functions 
are  produced  or  altered.  Such  connections  between  percep¬ 
tions,  emotions,  and  consequent  actions,  derived  through  nat¬ 
ural  selection,  or  even  those  that  are  ultimate  laws,  and 
determine,  in  a  manner  not  peculiar  to  any  species,  the  con- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


221 


ditions  and  uses  of  serviceable  actions, — are  instinctive  con¬ 
nections,  or  powers  of  instinct ,  in  a  restricted  but  perfectly 
definite  use  of  the  word.  But  following  immediately  in  the 
series  of  voluntary  actions  are,  first,  the  inherited  effects  of 
habits,  and  next,  habits  properly  so  called,  or  effects  produced 
by  higher  voluntary  actions  in  the  individual.  Habits  prop¬ 
erly  so  called,  and  dispositions ,  which  are  the  inherited  effects  of 
habits,  are  not  different  in  their  practical  character  or  modes 
of  action  from  true  instincts;  but  differ  only  in  their  origin 
and  capacity  of  alteration  through  the  higher  forms  of  voli¬ 
tion.  The  latter,  or  proper,  volitions  are  connections  between 
the  occasions,  or  external  means  and  conditions  of  an  action, 
and  the  production  of  the  action  itself  through  the  motive  of 
the  end ,  and  not  through  emotions  or  by  any  other  ties  instinct¬ 
ively  uniting  them.  They  are  joined  by  the  foreseen  ulterior 
effect  of  the  action,  or  else  through  a  union  produced  by  its 
influence.  The  desirableness  of  what  is  effected  by  an  action 
connects  its  occasions,  or  present  means  and  conditions,  with 
the  action  itself,  and  causes  its  production  through  the  end  felt 
in  imagination.  The  influence  of  the  end,  or  ulterior  motive 
in  volition,  may  not  be  a  consciously  recognized  part  of  the 
action,  or  a  distinctly  separated  step  in  it,  and  will  actually 
cease  to  be  the  real  tie  when  a  series  of  repeated  volitions  has 
established  a  habit,  or  a  fixed  association  between  them  and 
their  occasions,  or  external  conditions.  This  connection  in 
habits  is,  as  we  have  said,  closely  similar  to  strictly  instinctive 
connections,  and  is  indistinguishable  from  them  independently 
of  questions  of  origin  and  means  of  alterations. 

Independently  of  these  questions,  the  series  of  voluntary  ac¬ 
tions  starting  from  the  strictly  instinctive  joins  to  them  natural 
dispositions,  or  the  inherited  effects  of  habit,  and  passes  on  to 
habits  properly  so  called,  thence  into  those  in  which  the  ulterior 
motives  of  true  volitions  are  still  operative,  though  not  as  sepa¬ 
rate  parts  of  consciousness,  and  thence  on  to  mere  faculties  of 
action,  or  to  those  actions  in  which  such  a  motive  is  still  the  sole 
effective  link,  though  quite  faded  out  of  distinct  attention,  or 
attended  to  with  a  feeble  and  intermittent  consciousness. 
Thence  it  comes  finally  to  the  distinct  recognition  in  reflective 


222 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


thought  of  an  ulterior  motive  to  an  action.  The  ulterior  mo¬ 
tive,  the  end  or  good  to  be  effected  by  an  action,  anticipated 
in  imagination,  joins  the  action  to  its  present  means  and  con¬ 
ditions  in  actual  volitions,  or  else  joins  it  in  imagination  with 
some  future  occurrence  of  them  in  an  intention ,  or  a  predeter¬ 
mination  of  the  will.  These  ulterior  motives,  ends,  or  determi¬ 
nations  of  an  action  through  foreseen  consequences  of  it,  may 
be  within  the  will,  in  the  common  and  proper  meaning  of  the 
word,  when  it  is  spoken  of  as  free,  or  unconstrained  by  an  out¬ 
ward  force,  or  necessity;  or  they  may  be  without  it,  like  in¬ 
stinctive  tendencies  to  which  the  will  is  said  to  co?isent  ox  yield, 
as  well  as  in  other  cases  to  be  opposed.  The  motives  within 
the  will,  either  distinctly  or  vaguely  operative,  or  completely 
superseded  by  forces  of  habit,  constitute  the  individual’s  char¬ 
acter. 

To  summarize  all  the  steps  and  contrasts  of  these  series  un¬ 
der  the  general  heads  of  intelligence  and  instinct  would  be, 
from  the  evolutionist’s  and  naturalist’s  point  of  view,  only  a 
rough  classification,  like  that  of  living  beings  into  animals 
and  plants;  and  any  attempts  at  investigating  the  distinctions 
and  classes  of  mental  natures  by  framing  elaborate  definitions 
of  this  summary  contrast  would  be  like  concentrating  all  the 
energies  of  scientific  pursuit  in  biography,  and  staking  its  success 
on  the  question  whether  the  sponge  be  an  animal  or  a  plant. 
This  is,  in  fact,  the  scholastic  method,  from  which  modern  sci¬ 
ence  is  comparatively,  and  fortunately,  set  free;  being  con¬ 
tented  with  finding  out  more  and  more  about  beings  that  are 
unmistakably  animals  or  plants,  and  willing  to  study  the  nature 
of  the  sponge  by  itself,  and  defer  the  classification  of  it  to  the 
end.  The  more  ambitious  scholastic  method  is  followed  in  the 
science  of  psycho-zoology  by  those  who  seek,  in  an  ultimate  defi¬ 
nition  of  this  sort,  to  establish  an  impassable  barrier  between  the 
minds  of  men  and  those  of  the  lower  animals, — being  actuated 
apparently  by  the  naive,  though  generous,  motive  of  rendering 
the  former  more  respectable,  or  else  of  defending  a  worth  in 
them  supposed  to  be  dependent  on  such  a  barrier.  This  aim 
would  be  confusing  at  least,  if  not  a  false  one,  in  a  strictly  sci¬ 
entific  inquiry. 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


223 


Although  the  definition  of  the  subject  world  through  the  dis¬ 
tinction  in  memory  of  the  phenomena  of  signification  from 
those  of  outward  perception,  would  be  a  classification  spon¬ 
taneously  arising  through  inherited  facilities  and  predispositions 
to  associations,  which  are  as  effective  as  repeated  experiences 
would  be,  it  must  still  be  largely  aided  by  the  voluntary  char¬ 
acter  of  outward  signs, — vocal,  gestural,  and  graphic, — by 
which  all  signs  are  brought  under  the  control  of  the  will,  or  of 
that  most  central,  active  personality,  which  is  thus  connected 
externally  and  actively,  as  well  as  through  the  memory,  with 
the  inward  signs  or  the  representative  mental  images.  These 
images  are  brought  by  this  association  under  stronger  and 
steadier  attention;  their  character,  as  representative  images  or 
signs,  is  more  distinctly  seen  in  reflection,  and  they  are  not  any 
longer  merely  guides  in  thought,  blindly  followed.  They  form, 
by  this  association,  a  little  representative  world  arising  to 
thought  at  will.  Command  of  language  is  an  important  con¬ 
dition  of  the  effective  cognition  of  a  sign  as  such.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  the  dog  not  only  cannot  utter  the  sound  “fox,” 
but  cannot  revive  the  sound  as  heard  by  him.  The  word  can¬ 
not,  therefore,  be  of  aid  to  him  in  fixing  his  attention  in  reflec¬ 
tion  on  the  mental  image  of  the  fox  as  seen  or  smelt  by  him. 
But  the  latter,  spontaneously  arising,  would  be  sufficient  to 
produce  a  lively  train  of  thoughts,  or  a  vivid  dream.  It  by  no 
means  follows  from  his  deficiencies  of  vocal  and  auditory  im¬ 
agination  that  the  dog  has  not,  in  some  directions,  aid  from 
outward  signs,  and  some  small  degree  of  reflective  power, 
though  this,  probably,  falls  far  short  of  the  clear  division  of  the 
two  worlds  realized  in  the  cognition  of  “ cogito .”  Thus,  he  has 
at  command  the  outward  sign  of  the  chase,  incipient  movements 
of  his  limbs,  such  as  he  makes  in  his  dreams ;  and  this  may 
make  the  mental  image  of  the  chase,  with  its  common  obsta¬ 
cles  and  incidents,  distinct  in  his  imagination,  in  spite  of  the 
greater  interest  which  carries  the  thoughts  of  his  dream  forward 
to  the  end  of  the  pursuit,  the  capture  of  the  game.  He  may 
even  make  use  of  this  sign,  as  he  in  fact  does  when  he  indicates 
to  his  master  by  his  movements  his  eagerness  for  a  walk  or  for 
the  chase. 


224 


PHIL  0 SO PHI C A  L  DISC  USSIONS. 


Command  of  signs,  and,  indeed,  all  the  volitional  or  active 
powers  of  an  animal,  including  attention  in  perception,  place  it 
in  relation  to  outward  things  in  marked  contrast  with  its  pas¬ 
sive  relations  of  sensation  and  inattentive  or  passive  perception. 
The  distinctness,  or  prominence,  in  consciousness  given  by  an 
animal’s  attention  to  its  perceptions,  and  the  greater  energy 
given  by  its  intentions  or  purposes  to  its  outward  movements, 
cannot  fail  to  afford  a  ground  of  discrimination  between  these 
as  causes,  both  of  inward  and  outward  events,  and  those  out¬ 
ward  causes  which  are  not  directly  under  such  control,  but 
form  an  independent  system,  or  several  distinct  systems,  of 
causes.  This  would  give  rise  to  a  form  of  self-consciousness 
more  immediate  and  simple  than  the  intellectual  one,  and  is 
apparently  realized  in  dumb  animals.  They,  probably,  do 
not  have,  or  have  only  in  an  indistinct  and  ineffective  form, 
the  intellectual  cognitions  of  cogito  and  sum;  but  having 
reached  the  cognition  of  a  contrast  in  subject  and  object  as 
causes  both  in  inward  and  outward  events,  they  have  already 
acquired  a  form  of  subjective  consciousness,  or  a  knowledge  of 
the  ego.  That  they  do  not,  and  cannot,  name  it,  at  least  by  a 
general  name,  or  understand  it  by  the  general  name  of  “  I  ”  or 
ego,  comes  from  the  absence  of  the  attributes  of  ego  which  con¬ 
stitute  the  intellectual  self-consciousness.  A  dog  can,  never¬ 
theless,  understand  the  application  of  his  own  proper  name  to 
himself,  both  in  the  direct  and  the  indirect  reference  of  our 
language  to  his  conduct  or  his  wants;  and  can  also  understand 
the  application  to  himself  of  the  general  name, — “  dog.”  He 
cannot  say,  “I  am  a  dog,”  and  probably  has  but  the  faintest,  if 
any,  understanding  of  what  the  proposition  would  mean  if  he 
could  utter  it;  though  he  probably  has  as  much  understanding, 
at  least,  as  the  parrot  has  in  saying,  “I  am  Poll.”  For  there 
are,  in  these  propositions,  two  words  expressing  the  abstractest 
ideas  that  the  human  mind  can  reach.  One  of  them,  “I,”  is 
the  name  of  one  of  the  two  suvima  ge?iera ,  ego  and  non-ego ,  into 
which  human  consciousness  is  divisible.  “I  am  a  dog,”  and 
“Camp  is  a  dog,”  would  mean  much  the  same  to  Camp;  just 
as  “I  am  a  child,”  and  “John  is  a  child”  are  not  clearly  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  John  even  after  he  has  acquired  considerable 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


225 


command  of  language.  The  other  word,  “am,"  is  a  form  of 
the  substantive  verb  expressing  existence  in  general,  but  further 
determined  to  express  the  present  existence  of  the  speaker  or 
subject.  These  further  determinations,  in  tense,  number,  and 
persons,  are,  however,  the  most  important  parts  of  meaning  in 
the  various  forms  of  the  substantive  verb  to  the  common  and 
barbarous  minds,  from  which  we  and  the  philosophical  gram¬ 
marian  have  received  them.  The  substantive  verb  is,  accord¬ 
ingly,  irregular  in  most  languages  under  the  form  of  a  gram¬ 
matical  paradigm.  In  this  form  the  philosophical  grammarian 
subordinates  to  the  infinitive  meaning  of  a  word  those  deter¬ 
minations  which,  in  the  invention  of  words,  were  apparently 
regarded  as  leading  ideas  in  many  other  cases  as  well  as  in  the 
substantive  verb,  and  were  expressed  by  words  with  distinct 
etymologies. 

Not  only  the  dog  and  other  intelligent  dumb  animals,  but 
some  of  the  least  advanced  among  human  beings,  also,  are 
unable  to  arrive  at  a  distinct  abstraction  of  what  is  expressed 
by  “to  be,”  or  “To  exist.”  Being  is  concreted,  or  determined, 
to  such  minds  down,  at  least,  to  the  conception  of  living  or 
acting;  to  a  conception  scarcely  above  what  is  implied  in  the 
actions  of  the  more  intelligent  animals,  namely,  their  appre¬ 
hension  of  themselves  as  agents  or  patients  with  wills  and  feel¬ 
ings  distinct  from  those  of  other  animals,  and  from  the  forces 
and  interests  of  outward  nature  generally.  “Your  dog  is  here, 
or  is  coming,  and  at  your  service,”  is  a  familiar  expression  in 
the  actions  of  dogs  not  remarkable  for  intelligence.  A  higher 
degree  of  abstraction  and  generalization  than  the  simple  steps, 
which  are  sufficient,  as  we  have  seen,  for  inference  in  enthy- 
mematic  reasonings  to  particular  conclusions,  would  be  required 
ill  reflection;  and  a  more  extensive  and  persistent  exercise  of 
the  faculty  of  reflection,  aided  by»  voluntary  signs  or  by  lan¬ 
guage,  than  any  dumb  animal  attains  to,  would  be  needed  to 
arrive  at  the  cognition  of  cogito  and  sum.  This  is  a  late  acqui¬ 
sition  with  children;  and  it  would,  indeed,  be  surprising  if  the 
mind  of  a  dumb  animal  should  attain  to  it.  But  there  is  little 
ground  in  this  for  believing,  with  most  metaphysicians,  that  the 
cognition  is  absolutely  sui  generis,  or  an  ultimate  and  underived 


226 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


form  of  knowledge ;  or  that  it  is  not  approached  gradually,  as 
well  as  realized  with  different  degrees  of  clearness  and  pre¬ 
cision,  as  the  faculty  of  reflection  becomes  more  and  more  ex¬ 
ercised. 

That  a  dumb  animal  should  not  know  itself  to  be  a  thinking 
being,  is  hardly  more  surprising  than  that  it  should  not  be 
aware  of  the  circulation  of  its  blood  and  other  physiological 
functions;  or  that  it  should  not  know  the  anatomy  of  its  frame 
or  that  of  its  nervous  system,  or  the  seat  of  its  mental  facul¬ 
ties,  or  the  fact  that  the  brain  is  much  smaller  in  it,  in  propor¬ 
tion  to  the  size  of  its  body,  than  in  man.  Its  reflective  obser¬ 
vation  may  be  as  limited  in  respect  to  the  phenomena  of 
thought  as  the  outward  observation  of  most  men  is  in  respect 
to  these  results  of  scientific  research.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  boasted  intellectual  self-consciousness  of  man  is  a  knowl¬ 
edge  of  a  subject,  not  through  all  its  attributes  and  phenome¬ 
na,  but  only  through  enough  of  them  in  general  t©  determine 
and  distinguish  it  from  outward  objects,  and  make  it  serve  as 
the  subject  of  further  attributions  or  predications,  as  reflective 
observation  makes  them  known.  The  abstract  forms  of  this 
knowledge,  the  laws  of  logic  and  grammar,  and  the  categories 
of  the  understanding,  which  are  forms  of  all  scientific  knowl¬ 
edge,  are  all  referable  to  the  action  of  a  purpose  to  know,  and 
to  fix  knowledge  by  precise  generalization;  just  as  the  me¬ 
chanical  conditions  of  flight  are  referable  to  the  purpose  to  fly 
and  to  secure  the  requisite  means.  Generalization  already  ex¬ 
ists,  however,  with  particular  acts  of  inquisitiveness  in  the 
animal  mind;  and  there  is  required  only  the  proper  degree  of 
attention  to  signs  in  order  to  make  it  act  in  accordance  with 
laws  which,  if  they  are  universal  and  necessary  laws  of  the 
mind ,  are  equally  laws  of  the  animal  intelligence,  though  r^ot 
actually  exemplified  in  it;  just  as  the  laws  of  locomotion  are 
not  actually  exemplified  in  the  bodies  of  plants,  but  are  still 
potential  in  them. 

The  inferior  and  savage  races  of  men,  whose  languages  do 
not  include  any  abstract  terms  like  truth,  goodness,  and  sweet¬ 
ness,  but  only  concrete  ones,  like  true,  good,  and  sweet,  would 
hardly  be  able  to  form  a  conception,  even  a  vague  and  ob- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


227 


scure  one,  of  the  mystic’s  research  of  omniscience  in  the  pro¬ 
fundities  of  self-consciousness.  They  ought  on  this  account, 
perhaps,  to  be  regarded  as  races  distinct  from  that  of  these 
philosophers,  at  least  mentally,  and  to  be  classed,  in  spite  of 
their  powers  of  speech  and  limited  vocabularies,  with  the 
dumb,  but  still  intelligent,  animals.  If,  however,  the  theory 
above  propounded  be  true,  this  greatest  of  human  qualities, 
intelligent  self-consciousness,  understood  in  its  actual  and 
proper  limits,  would  follow  as  a  consequence  of  a  greater  brain, 
a  greater,  or  more  powerful  and  vivid,  memory  and  imagina¬ 
tion,  bringing  to  light,  as  it  were,  and  into  distinct  conscious¬ 
ness,  phenomena  of  thought  which  reflective  observation  refers 
to  the  subject,  already  known  in  the  dumb  animal,  or  distin¬ 
guished  as  an  active  cause  from  the  forces  of  outward  nature, 
and  from  the  wills  of  other  animals.  The  degrees  of  abstrac¬ 
tion  and  the  successively  higher  and  higher  steps  of  generali¬ 
zation,  the  process  which,  in  scientific  knowledge,  brings  not 
only  the  particulars  of  experience  under  general  designations, 
but,  with  a  conscious  purpose,  brings  the  less  general  under  the 
more  general,  or  gives  common  names  not  only  to  each  and 
all  resembling  objects  and  relations,  but  also  more  general  com¬ 
mon  names  to  what  is  denoted  by  these  names,  thus  grouping 
them  under  higher  categories, — this  process  brings  together 
the  several  forms  of  self-consciousness.  Willing,  desiring, 
feeling,  and  lastly  thinking,  also,  are  seen  in  thought  to  belong 
together,  or  to  the  same  subject;  and  by  thinking  they  are 
brought  under  a  common  view  and  receive  a  common  name, 
or  several  common  names,  to  wit,  “my  mind,”  “me,”  “I,” 
“my  mental  states.” 

By  still  further  observation,  comparison,  and  analysis  on  the 
part  of  philosophers,  this  step  is  seen  to  be  the  highest  degree 
of  abstraction,  since  nothing  appears  to  be  common  to  all  my 
mental  states,  except  their  belonging  together  and .  acting  on 
one  another,  along  with  their  common  independence  of  other 
existences  in  this  mutual  action.  The  word  “  I  ”  is  discovered 
by  philosophers  to  be  a  word  without  meaning  or  determina¬ 
tion,  or  to  be  as  meaningless  as  the  words  “thing,”  “being,” 
“  existence,”  which  are  subjects  stripped  of  all  attributes.  “  I  ” 


228 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


is  the  bare  subject  of  mental  phenomena.  The  word  points 
them  out,  but  does  not  declare  anything  of  their  nature  by  its 
meaning,  essence,  or  implied  attribution,  which  is,  in  fact,  no 
meaning  at  all.  Hence  philosophers  have  placed  this  term, 
or  name,  over  against  that  which  is  not,  or  in  contrast  with  all 
other  existences.  Common  language  has  no  name  for  the  lat¬ 
ter,  and  so  philosophers  were  compelled  to  call  it  the  non-ego, 
in  order  to  contrast  these  two  highest  categories,  or  summa  gen¬ 
era,  into  which  they  divide  all  of  which  we  are,  or  may  be, 
conscious.  Grammatical  science,  however,  furnished  con¬ 
venient  substitutes  for  these  words.  Ego  and  no?i-ego  were 
named  “subject”  and  “object.”  Yet  these  terms  so  applied 
do  not  retain  any  meanings.  “  Subject  ”  is  applicable  to  denote 
the  ego,  rather  than  the  no?i-ego,  only  because  it  is  the  positive 
or  more  prominent  term  of  the  antithesis  in  its  grammatical  ap- . 
plication,  like  “active  and  passive.”  Sir  William  Hamilton 
undertakes,  however,  to  assign  them  meanings  in  psychology  by 
representing  the  object  as  that  which  is  thought  about ,  and  the 
subject  as  that  which  thinks,  or  acts,  or  that  in  which  the  thought 
or  action  inheres.  But  this  definition  is  given  from  the  active 
subject’s  point  of  view,  and  not  from  the  whole  ,  scope  of  the 
subject-attributes.  We  act,  indeed,  in  volition  and  attentive 
perception  on  the  outer  world  or  non-ego  ;  but  in  sensatipn  and 
passive  perception  we  are  the  objects  influenced,  governed,  or 
acted  on  by  this  outer  world.  Moreover,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  effects  of  thinking,  both  the  object  and  subject  are 
the  subjects  of  attribution.  We  attribute  qualities  to  external 
objects,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  their  mental  images,  which, 
in  their  capacity  as  representative  images,  or  internal  signs  of 
objects  and  relations,  are  called  up  and  separately  attended  to 
in  the  human  consciousness,  and  are,  in  turn,  referred  or  at¬ 
tributed  to  the  conscious  subject,  or  to  its  memory  and  under¬ 
standing. 

These  images,  in  their  individual  capacity,  are  not  to  be  dis¬ 
tinguished,  even  in  human  consciousness,  from  the  object  of  per¬ 
ception.  It  is  in  their  specific,  or  notative,  function  as  signs, 
and  as  referring  back  to  memories  of  like  experiences,  which 
they  summarize,  that  they  are  separately  and  subjectively  cog- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


229 


nized.  Individually  they  are  divisible  only  into  real  and  unreal, 
or  into  remembered  and  imagined  combinations  of  particular 
impressions.  As  inward  and  mine  they  are  “concepts,”  or 
thoughts  directing  the  processes  of  thought,  and  are  specially 
related  to  my  will  and  its  motives.  The  classification  of  events 
as  inward  and  outward  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  the  sci¬ 
entific  process  depends  on  each  man’s  experiences  of  their  con¬ 
nections  alone;  for  the  forms  of  language,  and  what  is  indirectly 
taught  in  learning  a  language,  guide  observation  in  this  matter 
largely;  and  so,  also,  very  probably,  do  inherited  aptitudes, 
ties,  or  tendencies  to  combination,  which  have  the  same  effect 
in  associating  the  particulars  of  the  individual’s  experiences  as 
the  frequent  repetitions  of  them  in  himself  would  have,  and  are, 
indeed,  by  the  theory  of  evolution,  the  consequences  of  such  re¬ 
peated  experiences  in  the  individual’s  progenitors.  Such  a 
reference  of  the  distinction  of  subject  and  object  to  instinctive 
tendencies  in  our  minds  is  not  equivalent  to  the  metaphysical 
doctrine  that  this  distinction  is  intuitive.-  For  this  implies 
more  than  is  meant  by  the  word  “  instinctive  ”  from  the  natural¬ 
ist’s  point  of  view.  It  implies  that  the  cognition  is  absolute: 
independent  not  only  of  the  individual’s  experiences,  but  of  all 
possible  previous  experience,  and  has  a  certainty,  reality,  and 
cogency  that  no  amount  of  experience  could  give  to  an  em¬ 
pirical  classification. 

The  metaphysical  dogmas,  for  which  this  formula  is  given, 
deserve  but  a  passing  scientific  consideration.  Truths  inde¬ 
pendent  of  all  experience  are  not  known  to  exist,  unless  we 
exclude  from  what  we  mean  by  “experience”  that  experience 
which  we  have  in  learning  the  meanings  of  words  and  in  agree¬ 
ing  to  definitions  and  the  conventions  of  language,  on  the 
ground  that  they  depend  solely,  or  may  be  considered  as  de¬ 
pending  solely,  on  a  lexical  authority,  from  which  a  kind  of 
necessity  proceeds,  independent  of  reality  in  the  relations  and 
connections  of  the  facts  denoted  by  the  words.  It  is  possible 
that  laws  exist  absolutely  universal,  binding  fate  and  infinite 
power  as  well  as  speech  and  the  intelligible  use  of  words;  but 
it  is  not  possible  that  the  analytical  processes  of  any  finite 
intellect  should  discover  what  particular  laws  these  are.  Such 


230 


PHIL  0S0PHICA  L  DISC  US  SI  OHS. 


an  intellect  may  legislate  with  absolute  freedom  in  the  realm 
of  definition  and  word-making,  provided  it  limits  itself  to  its 
autonomy,  and  does  not  demand  of  other  intellects  that  they 
shall  be  governed  by  such  laws  as  if  they  were  of  universal 
application  in  the  world  of  common  experience.  It  is  also 
possible  that  beliefs,  or  convictions,  exist,  supposed  by  the 
mystic  to  be  independent  of  all  ordinary  forms  of  particular 
experience,  “which  no  amount  of  experience  could  produce”; 
but  it  is  not  true  that  there  are  any  universal  or  scientific  beliefs 
of  this  kind.  The  effects  of  inherited  aptitudes,  and  of  early, 
long-continued,  and  constantly  repeated  experiences  in  the  in¬ 
dividual,  together  with  the  implications  of  language  itself,  in 
fixing  and  in  giving  force  and  certainty  to  an  idea  or  a  belief, 
have,  probably,  not  been  sufficiently  considered  by  those  meta¬ 
physicians  who  claim  a  preternatural  and  absolute  origin  for 
certain  of  our  cognitions;  and  also,  perhaps,  the  more  dogmatic 
among  these  thinkers  over-estimate  the  force  and  certainty  of 
the  beliefs,  or  mistake  the  kind  of  necessity  they  have.  The 
essential  importance,  the  necessity  and  universality  in  language, 
of  pronominal  words  or  signs,  should  not  be  mistaken  for  a  real 
a  priori  necessity  in  the  relations  expressed  by  them,  j  Meta¬ 
physicians  should  consider  that  ego  and  non-ego,  as  real  ex¬ 
istences,  are  not  individual  phenomena,  but  groups  with 
demonstrative  names  the  least  possible  determined  in  meaning, 
or  are  the  most  abstract  subjects  of  the  phenomena  of  experi¬ 
ence,  though  determined,  doubtless,  in  their  applications  partly 
by  spontaneous,  instinctive,  or  natural  and  inherited  tendencies 
to  their  formation. 

This  view  of  the  origin  of  the  cognition  of  cogito  is  equally 
opposed  to  the  schemes  of  “  idealism  ”  and  “  natural  realism,” 
which  divide  modern  schools  of  philosophy.  According  to  the 
“idealists,”  the  conscious  subject  is  immediately  known,  at  least 
in  its  phenomena,  and  the  phenomena  are  intuitively  known  to 
belong  to  it;  while  the  existence  of  anything  external  to  the 
mind  is  an  inference  from  the  phenomena  of  self,  or  a  reference 
of  some  of  them  to  external  causes.  Objects  are  only  known 
mediately  “by  their  effects  on  us.”  Against  this  view  the 
“natural  realist”  appeals  effectively  to  the  common-sense,  or 


I 


E  VOL  UTION  OF  SELF-  CO  NS  CIO  US  NESS.  2  3 1 

natural  judgment  of  unsophisticated  minds,  and  is  warranted 
by  this  judgment  in  declaring  that  the  object  of  consciousness 
is  just  as  immediately  known  as  the  subject  is.  But  natural 
realism  goes  beyond  this  judgment  and  holds  that  both  the 
subject  and  object  are  absolutely,  immediately,  and  equally 
known  through  their  essential  attributes  in  perception.  This 
is  more  than  an  unlearned  jury  are  competent  to  say.  For  if 
oy  immediacy  we  mean  the  relation  which  a  particular  unat¬ 
tributed  phenomenon  has  to  consciousness  in  general,  we  are 
warranted  in  saying  that  immediately,  or  without  the  step  of 
attribution,  subject  and  object  are  undistinguished  in  conscious¬ 
ness.  Thus,  the  sensations  of  sound  and  color  and  taste  and 
pleasure  and  pain,  and  the  emotions  of  hope  and  fear  and  love 
and  hate,  if  not  yet  referred  to  their  causes ,  or  even  classified  as 
sensations  and  emotions ,  belong  to  neither  world  exclusively. 
But  so  far  as  any  man  can  remember,  no  such  unattributed  or 
unclassified  states  of  consciousness  are  experienced.  He  can¬ 
not  say,  however,  that  they  cannot  exist,  or  (what  is  worse  for 
the  theory)  that  a  state  of  consciousness  cannot  be  wrongly 
attributed  or  classified.  All  states  of  consciousness  are,  it  is 
true,  referred  to  one  or  the  other,  or  partly  to  each  of  the  two 
worlds;  and  this  attribution  is,  in  part  at  least,  instinctive,  yet 
not  independent  of  all  experience,  since  it  comes  either  from 
the  direct  observation  of  our  progenitors,  or,  possibly,  through 
the  natural  selection  of  them;  that  is,  possibly  through  the 
survival  of  those  who  rightly  divided  the  worlds,  and  did  not 
often  mistake  a  real  danger  for  a  dream  or  for  an  imagined 
peril,  nor  often  mistake  a  dream  of  security  for  real  safety.  If, 
however,  we  mean  by  immediacy  such  an  instinctive  attribu¬ 
tion,  independent  of  repeated  connections  of  attributes  in  their 
subject  through  the  individual’s  own  experiences,  then  “natural 
realism  ”  is  most  in  accordance  with  our  view,  with  such  ex¬ 
ceptions  as  the  mistakes  and  corrections  of  dreams  and  hallu¬ 
cinations  imply,  and  excepting  the  ontological  or  metaphysical 
positions  that  are  assumed  in  it. 

If  the  natural  realist  is  not  also  an  evolutionist  (and  usually 
he  is  not),  then  his  meaning  of  intuitions  must  be  that  they 
are  absolute  and  underived  universal  facts  of  connection  in 


I 


232 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


phenomena.  He  must  suppose  that  distinct  phenomena  have 
stamped  upon  them  indelible  marks  of  their  ultimate  high¬ 
est  class,  equivalents  for  “I”  and  “not-I,”  as  the  individuals 
of  a  herd  of  cattle  are  branded  with  the  mark  of  their  owner. 
Such  an  immutable  mark  would,  however,  render  the  mistakes 
of  insanity,  hallucinations,  and  dreams  impossible,  or  else 
would  refer  them  (as  has  actually  been  supposed*)  to  the 
mystery  of  the  existence  of  evil, — a  convenient  disposition  of 
philosophical  puzzles.  In  the  doctrine  of  evolution  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  word  “  intuition  ”  does  not  imply  immutability  in  the 
connections  of  instinctively  combined  phenomena,  except  where 
such  connection  is  an  ultimate  law  of  nature,  or  is  the  simplest 
causal  connection,  like  the  laws  of  motion,  or  the  laws  of  logic, 
regarding  logic  as  a  science  and  not  merely  as  an  art.  The 
intuition  of  space  in  the  blind  might  be,  from  this  point  of  view, 
a  different  combination  of  sensibilities  from  that  in  other  men ; 
and  the  interpretation  of  sensations  of  hearing  or  sight  in  hallu¬ 
cinations  as  being  caused  by  outward  objects,  when,  in  reality, 
they  arise  from  disturbances  or  abnormal  conditions  of  the 
nervous  system,  would  not  be  an  interpretation  involving  vio¬ 
lations  of  ultimate  laws,  or  suspensions  in  rebellious  Nature  of 

relations  between  cause  and  effect.  Variations  in  intuitions 

• 

and  instinctive  judgments  would  be  as  natural  and  explicable 
as  errors  of  judgment  are  in  the  experiences  of  the  individual 
man.  But  the  doctrine  of  natural  realism,  independently  of 
that  of  evolution  and  the  implied  mutability  of  instincts,  has 
insurmountable  difficulties. 

Idealism,  on  the  other  hand,  appears  to  contradict  not  the 
abnormal,  so  much  as  the  common,  phenomena  of  conscious¬ 
ness.  It  seems  to  be  related  to  the  modern  sciences  of  phys¬ 
ics  and  physiology  very  nearly  as  natural  realism  is  to  scho¬ 
lastic  logic  and  ontology.  Dating  from  the  time  of  Descartes, 
it  appears,  in  all  its  forms,  to  depend  on  a  more  exact  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  bodily  apparatus  and  outward  physical  causes  of 


perception  than  the  ancients  possessed.  This  knowledge  made 
it  evident  that  perception,  and  even  sensation,  are  fully  deter¬ 
mined  or  realized  in  the  brain  only  through  other  parts  of  the 


*  Dr.  McCosh,  On  the  Intuitions  of  the  Mind,  etc. 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


233 


bodily  apparatus,  and  through  outward  forces  and  movements 
like  diose  of  pressure  and  vibration.  That  the  perception,  or 
sensation,  is  experienced,  or  is  seated,  in  the  brain,  was  a  nat¬ 
ural  and  proper  conclusion.  That  the  apparent  object  of 
perception  is  not  only  distant  from  what  thus  appeared  to 
be  the  seat  of  the  perception,  but  that  a  long  series  of  usually 
unknown,  or  unnoticed,  movements  intervenes  between  it 
and  this  apparent  seat, — these  facts  gave  great  plausibility 
to  a  confused  interpretation  of  the  phenomena,  namely,  that 
the  perception  is  first  realized  as  a  state  of  the  conscious  ego, 
and,  afterwards,  is  referred  to  the  outward  world  through 
the  associations  of  general  experience,  as  an  effect  produced 
upon  us  by  an  otherwise  unknown  outward  cause.  On  simi¬ 
lar  grounds  a  similar  misinterpretation  was  made  of  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  volition,  namely,  that  a  movement  in  ourselves, 
originally  and  intuitively  known  to  be  ours ,  produces  an  effect 
in  the  outward  world  at  a  distance  from  us,  through  the  inter¬ 
vention  of  a  series  of  usually  unknown  (or  only  indirectly 
known)  agencies.  Remote  effects  of  the  outer  world  on  us, 
and  our  actions  in  producing  remote  effects  on  it,  appeared  to 
be  the  first  or  intuitive  elements  in  our  knowledge  of  these 
phenomena,  all  the  rest  being  derived  or  inferential.  This 
was  to  confound  the  seat  of  sensation  or  perception  in  the 
brain  with  its  proper  subjectivity,  or  the  reference  of  it  to  the 
subject. 

The  position  in  the  brain  where  the  last  physical  condition 
for  the  production  of  a  sensation  is  situated  is,  no  doubt,  prop¬ 
erly  called  the  place  or  seat  of  the  sensation,  especially  as  it  is 
through  the  movements  of  the  brain  with  other  special  nervous 
tracts,  and  independently  of  any  movements  out  of  the  nervous 
system,  that  like  sensations  are,  or  can  be,  revived,  though  these 
revived  ones  are  generally  feebler  than  those  that  are  set  in 
movement  by  outward  forces.  Nevertheless,  this  physiological 
seat  of  a  sensation  is  no  part  of  our  direct  knowledge  of  it. 
A  priori  we  cannot  assign  it  any  glace,  nor  decide  that  it  has, 
or  has  not,  a  place.  The  place  which  we  do  assign  it,  in  case 
it  is  outward,  is  the  place  determined  by  a  great  variety  of  sen¬ 
sations  and  active  forms  of  consciousness  experienced  in  the 


234 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


localization  of  the  object  to  which  it  is  referred.  It  is  only  by 
the  association  (either  spontaneous  and  instinctive,  or  acquired) 
of  this  sensation  with  those  sensations  and  actions  that  are 
involved  in  the  localization  of  the  object,  that  we  arrive  at 
any  notion  of  its  locality.  If  we  do  not  form  any  such  asso¬ 
ciations  of  it  with  otherwise  determined  localities,  and  if  it 
and  its  kind  remain  after  much  experience  unlocalized,  or  only 
vaguely  localized  in  our  bodies,  it  is  then,  but  not  till  then ,  re¬ 
ferred  co  the  conscious  self  as  a  subjective  phenomenon.  There 
remains  the  alternative,  of  course,  in  the  theory  of  evolution^ 
that  the  negative  experiences,  which  would  thus  determine  the 
subjective  character  of  a  phenomenon,  may  be  the  experiences 
of  our  progenitors,  and  that  our  judgment  of  this  character 
may  be,  in  many  cases,  an  instinctive  one,  arising  from  the  in¬ 
herited  effects  of  these  former  experiences.  Otherwise  this 
judgment  in  the  individual  mind,  and  from  its  own  experiences, 
would  appear  to  be  posterior,  in  point  of  time,  to  its  acquaint¬ 
ance  with  the  object  world,  since  this  judgment  would  be  de¬ 
termined  by  the  absence  of  any  uniform  connection  in  the  phe¬ 
nomenon  with  the  phenomena  of  locality.  Instead  of  being, 
as  the  theories  of  idealism  hold,  first  known  as  a  phenomenon 
of  the  subject  ego,  or  as  an  effect  upon  us  of  an  hypothetical 
outward  world,  its  first  unattributed  condition  would  be,  by 
our  view,  one  of  neutrality  between  the  two  worlds. 

In  dissenting,  therefore,  from  both  extremes, — the  theory 
of  idealism  and  that  of  natural  realism,  or  assenting  to  the  lat¬ 
ter  only  as  qualified  by  the  theory  of  evolution, — I  have  sup¬ 
posed  both  theories  to  be  dealing  with  the  two  worlds  only  as 
worlds  of  phenomena,,  without  considering  the  metaphysical 
bearings  and  varieties  of  them  with  respect  to  the  question  of 
the  cognition  of  non-phenomenal  existences,  on  the  grounds  of 
belief  in  an  inconceivable  and  metaphysical  matter  or  spirit ; 
for,  according  to  the  view  proposed  as  a  substitute  for  these 
extremes,  subject  and  object  are  only  names  of  the  highest 
classes,  and  are  not  the  names  of  inconceivable  substrata  of 
phenomena.  Ontology  or  metaphysics  would  not  be  likely  to 
throw  much  original  light  on  the  scientific  evolution  of  self- 
consciousness;  but  it  becomes  itself  an  interesting  object  of 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


235 


study  as  a  phase  of  this  evolution  seen  in  the  light  of  science. 
When  one  comes  to  examine  in  detail  the  supposed  cognitions 
of  super-sensible  existences,  and  the  faculty  of  necessary  truth 
which  is  called  “  the  reason,”  or  else  is  described  in  its  sup¬ 
posed  results  as  the  source  Of  necessary  beliefs  or  convictions, 
or  of  natural  and  valid  hypotheses  of  inconceivable  realities, 
great  difficulty  is  experienced,  on  account  of  the  abstract  char¬ 
acter  of  the  beliefs,  in  distinguishing  what  is  likely  to  be  strictly 
inherited  from  what  is  early  and  uniformly  acquired  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  faculty  of  reflection,  and  especially  from 
what  is  imbibed  through  language,  the  principal  philosophical 
instrument  of  this  faculty.  The  languages  employed  by  phi¬ 
losophers  are  themselves  lessons  in  ontology,  and  have,  in  their 
grammatical  structures,  implied  conceptions  and  beliefs  com¬ 
mon  to  the  philosopher  and  to  the  barbarian  inventors  of  lan¬ 
guage,  as  well  as  other  implications  which  the  former  takes 
pains  to  avoid.  How  much  besides  he  ought  to  avoid,  in  the 
correction  of  conceptions  erroneously  derived  from  the  forms 
of  language,  is  a  question  always  important  to  be  considered 
in  metaphysical  inquiries. 

The  conception  of  substance ,  as  a  nature  not  fully  involved  in 
the  contrast  of  essential  and  accidental  attributes,  and  the  con¬ 
nection,  or  co-existence,  of  them  in  our  experiences;  or  the  con¬ 
ception  of  substance  as  also  implying  the  real,  though  latent,  co¬ 
existence  of  all  attributes  in  an  existence  unknown  to  us,  or 
known  only  in  a  non-phenomenal  and  inconceivable  way, — this 
conception  needs  to  be  tested  by  an  examination  of  the  possi¬ 
ble  causes  of  it  as  an  effect  of  the  forms  of  language  and  other 
familiar  associations,  which,  however  natural,  may  still  be  mis¬ 
leading.  To  the  minds  of  the  barbarian  inventors  of  language, 
words  had  not  precise  meanings,  for  definition  is  not  a  bar¬ 
barian  accomplishment.  Hence,  to  such  minds,  definite  and 
precise  attributions,  as  of  sweetness  to  honey  and  sugar,  or 
light  to  the  day,  to  the  heavenly  bodies,  or  to  fire,  are  strongly 
in  contrast  with  the  vagueness  which  appears  to  them  inherent 
in  substantive  names, — inherent  not  as  vagueness,  however, 
but  as  somethmg  else.  Such  names  did  not  clearly  distinguish 
persons  and  things,  for  the  day  and  the  heavenly  bodies  were 


2  36 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


personal,  and  fire  apparently  was  an  animal  or  a  spirit.  Re¬ 
moving  as  much  as  possible  of  mere  crudeness  from  such  concep¬ 
tions,  predication  would  yet  appear  to  be  a  reference  of  some¬ 
thing  distinctly  known  to  something  essentially  unknown,  oi 
known  only  by  one  or  a  few  attributes  needed  to  distinguish  it 
by  a  name,  as  proper  names  distinguish  persons.  The  meaning 
of  this  name,  and  the  conception  of  it  as  meaning  much  more, 
and  as  actually  referring  to  unapparent  powers  of  bringing  to 
light  attributes  previously  unknown, — powers  manifested  in  an 
actual  effect  when  a  new  attribute  is  added  in  predication, — 
this  vague,  ill-defined,  and  essentially  hidden  meaning  is  assimi¬ 
lated  in  grammar,  and  thence  in  philosophy,  to  an  agent  put¬ 
ting  forth  a  new  manifestation  of  itself  in  a  real  self-assertion. 

The  contrast  of  “active  and  passive”  in  the  forms  of 
verbs  illustrates  how  the  barbaric  mind  mounted  into  the 
higher  regions  of  abstraction  in  language  through  concrete 
imaginations.  The  subject  of  a  proposition,  instead  of  being 
thought  of  as  that  vaguely  determined  group  of  phenomena 
with  which  the  predicate  is  found  to  be  connected,  was  thought 
either  to  perform  an  action  on  an  object  as  expressed  through 
the  transitive  verb,  or  to  be  acted  on  by  the  object  as  ex¬ 
pressed  through  the  passive  form,  or  to  put  forth  an  action 
absolute,  expressed  by  the  neuter  verb,  or  to  assert  its  past, 
present,  or  future  existence  absolutely,  and  its  possession  of 
certain  properties  as  expressed  by  the  substantive  verb,  and 
by  the  copula  and  predicate.  This  personification  of  the 
subject  of  a  proposition,  which  is  still  manifested  in  the  forms 
and  terminology  of  grammar,  is  an  assimilation  of  things  to 
an  active,  or  at  least  demonstrative,  self-consciousness  or 
personality.  It  had  hardly  reached  the  degree  of  abstrac¬ 
tion  needed  for  the  clear  intellectual  self-consciousness  of 
cogito .  It  rather  implied  that  things  also  think.  The  inven¬ 
tion  of  substantive  names  for  attributes,  that  is,  abstract  names, 

like  goodness  or  truth, — an  invention  fraught  with  most  im- 
% 

portant  consequences  to  human  knowledge, — brought  at  first 
more  prominently  forward  the  realistic  tendencies  which  phi¬ 
losophers  have  inherited  from  the  barbarian  inventors  of  lan¬ 
guage.  Abstract  names  do  not  seem  to  have  been  meant  at 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


237 


first  to  be  the  direct  names  of  attributes,  or  collections  of  attri¬ 
butes,  as  “  goodness  ”  and  “  humanity,”  but  to  be  the  names  of 
powers  (such  as  make  things  good,  or  make  men  what  they  are), 
names  which  appear  to  be  results  of  the  earliest  conscious  or  sci¬ 
entific  analysis  in  the  progress  of  the  human  mind,  but  which 
are  strongly  tainted  still  by  the  barbaric  conception  of  words  as 
the  names  of  active  beings.  Abstract  words  were  not,  however, 
as  active  or  demonstrative  as  their  savage  progenitors,  the 
concrete  general  substantives.  They  appear  rather  as  artifi¬ 
cers,  or  the  agents  which  build  up  things,  or  make  them  what 
they  are.  But,  by  means  of  them,  concrete  general  names 
were  deprived  of  their  powers  and  reduced  to  subjection.  To 
have  direct  general  names,  and  to  have  general  powers,  seem 
to  be  synonymous  to  savage  and  semi-barbarous  mind. 

I  have  spoken  as  if  all  this  were  a  matter  of  past  history, 
instead  of  being  an  actually  present  state  of  philosophical 
thought,  and  a  present  condition  of  some  words  in  the  minds 
of  many  modern  thinkers.  The  misleading  metaphors  are,  it 
is  true,  now  recognized  as  metaphors;  but  their  misleading 
character  is  not  clearly  seen  to  its  full  extent.  The  subjects 
of  propositions  are  still  made  to  do  the  work,  to  bear  the  im¬ 
positions,  to  make  known  the  properties  and  accidents  ex¬ 
pressed  by  their  predicates,  or  to  assert  their  own  existence 
and  autonomy,  just  so  far  as  they  are  supposed  to  be  the  names 
of  anything  but  the  assemblages  of  known  essential  qualities  or 
phenomena  actually  co-existent  in  our  experiences,  that  is  of 
the  qualities  which  their  definitions  involve,  and  to  which  other 
attributes  are  added  (but  from  which  they  are  not  evolved)  in 
real  predication;  or  just  so  far  as  they  are  supposed  to  be  the 
names  of  unknown  and  imperceptible  entities.  Names  are 
directly  the  designations  of  things,  not  of  hidden  powers,  or 
wills,  in  things.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  regard  them  as  pre¬ 
cisely  definable,  or  as  connoting  definite  groups  of  qualities  or 
the  essential  attributes  of  things,  in  order  that  they  may  fulfill 
the  true  functions  of  words;  for  they  are  still  only  the  names 
of  things,  not  of  wills  in  things,  on  the  one  hand,  nor  of  “con¬ 
cepts”  or  thoughts  in  us,  on  the  other  hand.  They  are  syno¬ 
nyms  of  “concepts,”  if  we  please  to  extend  synonymy  so  as 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


23S 

to  incLide  the  whole  range  of  the  signs  of  things ;  but  both  the 
“concept”  and  its  verbal  synonym  may  be,  and  generally  are, 
vague .  For  just  as  in  the  major  premises  of  syllogisms  the  sub¬ 
ject  is,  in  general,  a  co-designation  of  two  undivided  parts  of  a 
class  of  objects,  one  known  directly  to  have,  or  lack,  the  attri¬ 
butes  affirmed  or  denied  in  this  premise,  and  the  other  part, 
judged  by  induction  to  be  also  possessed,  or  not  possessed  of 
them, — a  co-designation  in  which  the  conclusion  of  the  syllogism 
is  virtually  contained,  so  as  to  make  the  syllogism  appear  to  be  a 
petitio principii  (as  it  would  be  but  for  this  implied  induction*), — 
so  in  the  simple  naming  of  objects  the  names  may  be  properly  re¬ 
garded  as  the  names  of  groups  of  qualities,  in  which  groups 
the  qualities  are  partly  known  and  partly  unknown,  predication 
in  real  (not  verbal)  propositions  being  the  conversion  of  the 
latter  into  the  former.  But  in  this  view  of  the  functions  of 
words,  it  is  necessary,  at  least,  to  suppose  enough  of  the  known 
attributes  of  objects  to  be  involved  in  the  meanings  of  their 
names  to  make  the  applications  of  the  names  distinct  and  defi¬ 
nite.  Names,  with  the  capacity  they  would  thus  acquire,  or  have 
actually  had,  in  spite  of  metaphysics,  of  having  their  meanings 
modified  or  changed,  are  best  adapted  to  the  functions  of  words 
in  promoting  the  progress  of  knowledge.  From  this  use  of 
words  their  essences,  both  the  apparent  and  the  inscrutable, 
have  disappeared  altogether,  except  so  far  as  the  actual  exist¬ 
ence  and  co-existence  of  the  known  attributes  of  objects  are  im- 
.  plied  by  names,  or  so  far  as  the  co-existence  of  these  with  pre¬ 
viously  unknown  ones  is  also  implied  by  the  use  of  names  as 
the  subjects  of  propositions.  No  inscrutable  powers  in  words 
or  things,  nor  any  immutable  connections  among  the  attributes 
called  essential,  are  thus  imposed  upon  the  use  of  words  in 
science. 

Metaphysicians,  on  the  other  hand,  in  nearly  all  that  is  left  to 
the  peculiar  domain  of  their  inquiries,  possess  their  problems 
and  solutions  in  certain  words,  such  as  “substance,”  “cause,” 
“matter,”  “mind,”  which  still  retain,  at  least  in  metaphysical 
usage,  the  barbaric  characters  we  have  examined.  Matter 
and  mind,  for  example,  still  remain,  not  only  with  meta- 


*  See  Mill’s  Logic,  Book  II.,  chapter  iii. 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


239 


physicians,  but  also  with  the  vulgar,  designations  of  unknown 
inscrutable  powers  in  the  outward  and  inward  worlds,  01 
powers  which,  according  to  some,  are  known  only  to  a  higher 
form  of  intuition  through  the  faculty  of  “Reason”;  or,  being 
really  inscrutable  and  inconceivable  by  any  human  faculty, 
as  others  hold,  are,  nevertheless,  regarded  as  certainly  ex¬ 
istent,  and  attested  by  irresistible  natural  beliefs.  That  beliefs 
in  beings,  unknown  and  unknowable,  are  real  beliefs,  and 
are  natural  (though  more  so  to  some  minds  than  to  others), 
seems  a  priori  probable  on  the  theory  of  evolution,  without 
resorting  to  the  effects  of  early  training  and  the  influence  of  * 
associations  in  language  itself,  by  which  the  existence  of 
such  beliefs  is  accounted  for  by  some  scientific  philosophers. 
But  the  authority  which  the  theory  of  evolution  would  assign 
to  these  beliefs  is  that  of  the  conceptions  which  barbarous 
and  vulgar  minds  have  formed  of  the  functions  of  words, 
and  of  the  natures  which  they  designate.  Inheritance  of 
these  conceptions,  that  is,  of  aptitudes  or  tendencies  to  their 
formation,  and  the  continued  action  of  the  causes  so  admirably 
analyzed  by  Mr.  Mill,*  through  which  he  proposes  to  account 
for  these  beliefs  directly,  and  which  have  retained,  especially 
in  the  metaphysical  conception  of  “matter,”  the  barbarian’s 
feelings  and  notions  about  real  existence  as  a  power  to  produce 
phenomena,  are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  existence  of  these 
beliefs  and  their  cogency,  without  assigning  them  any  force  as 
authorities. 

That  some  minds  have  inherited  these  beliefs,  or  the  tendency 
to  form  them,  more  completely  than  others,  accords  with  a  dis¬ 
tinction  in  the  mental  characters  of  philosophers  which  Pro¬ 
fessor  Masson  makes  in  his  work  on  Recent  British  Philosophy, 
and  illustrates  by  the  philosophies  of  Mr.  Carlyle,  Sir  W.  Ham¬ 
ilton,  and  Mr.  Mill,  namely,  the  differences  arising  from  the 
degrees  in  which  the  several  thinkers  were  actuated  by  an 
“ontological  faith,”  or  an  “ontological  feeling  or  passion,” 
which,  according  to  Professor  Masson,  has  in  the  history  of  the 
world  amounted  to  “  a  rage  of  ontology,”  and  has  been  the 
motive  of  wars  and  martyrdoms.  This  passion  would  appear, 


*  See  Mill’s  Examination  of  Hamilton,  chapter  xi. 


4 


24o  PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSION’S. 

according  to  the  theory  of  evolution,  to  be  a  survival  of  the  bar¬ 
barian’s  feelings  and  notions  of  phenomena  as  the  outward  show 
of  hidden  powers  in  things,  analogous  to  his  own  expressions 
in  language  and  gesture  of  his  will  or  interior  activity.  As 
he  assigned  his  own  name,  or  else  the  name  “I,”  to  this  act¬ 
ive  inward  personality,  and  not  to  the  group  of  external  charac¬ 
ters  by  which  he  was  known  to  his  fellow-barbarians ;  and  as  he 
also  named  and  addressed  them  as  indwelling  spirits,  so  he 
seemed  to  apply  his  general  designations  of  things.  The  traces 
of  this  way  of  regarding  names  and  things,  surviving  in  the 
grammatical  inventions  and  forms  of  speech,  which  the  barba¬ 
rian  has  transmitted  to  us,  include  even  the  sexes  of  things. 
The  metaphysical  meanings  of  the  terms  “substance,”  “mat¬ 
ter,”  “mind,”  “spirit,”  and  “cause”  are  other  traces.  The 
metaphysical  realism  of  abstract  terms  appears,  in  like  manner, 
to  be  a  trace  of  an  original  analysis  of  motives  in  the  powers 
of  things  to  produce  their  phenomena,  analogous  to  the  bar¬ 
barian’s  analysis  of  motives  in  his  own  will  or  those  of  his  fel¬ 
lows. 

According  to  Professor  Masson,  Sir  W.  Hamilton  was 
strongly  actuated  by  “the  ontological  passion.”  This  would 
mean,  according  to  our  interpretation  of  it,  that  he  had  inher¬ 
ited,  or  had  partly,  perhaps,  imbibed  from  his  philosophical 
studies,  the  barbarian’s  mode  of  thought.  And  it  appeared  in 
the  metaphysical  extension  which  he  gave  to  the  doctrine  of 
natural  realism,  which,  with  him,  was  not  merely  the  doctrine 
of  the  equal  immediacy  and  the  instinctive  attribution  of  sub¬ 
jective  and  objective  phenomena,  but  included  also  natural 
beliefs  in  the  equal  and  independent,  though  hidden,  existences 
of  the  metaphysical  substrata  of  matter  and  mind.  He  was, 
nevertheless,  so  far  influenced  by  modern  scientific  modes  of 
thought  that  he  did  not  claim  for  these  natural  beliefs  at  all  the 
character  of  cognitions,  nor  did  he  claim  determinate  concep¬ 
tion  of  these  existences  except  as  to  their  mutual  independence. 
He  rejected  the  metaphysician’s  invention  of  a  faculty  of 
“reason,”  cognizant  of  supersensible  realities;  and  really  con¬ 
tradicted  himself  in  claiming,  with  most  modern  thinkers, 
that  knowledge  of  phenomena  is  the  only  possible  knowledge, 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, 


24  I 

while  he  held  that  belief  in  what  could  not  thus  be  known  had 
the  certainty  of  knowledge,  and  was  in  effect  knowledge, 
though  he  did  not  call  it  knowledge.* 

Another  point  in  Sir  W.  Hamilton’s  philosophy  illustrates 
our  theory  on  a  different  side.  While  contending  for  the  equal 
immediacy  of  our  knowledge  of  subject  and  object,  he,  never¬ 
theless,  held  that  the  phenomena  of  the  subject  had  a  superior 
certainty  to  those  of  the  object,  on  the  ground  that  the  latter 
could  be  doubted  (as  they  were  by  certain  idealists)  without 
logical  contradiction,  while  the  former  could  not  be,  since  to 
doubt  the  existence  of  the  subject  would  be  to  doubt  the  doubt, 
and  thus  neutralize  it.  To  say  nothing  of  other  objections  to 
this  as  a  criterion  of  subjective  certainty,  it  is  obvious  that  it 
has  no  cogency  as  applied  to  the  metaphysical,  or  non-phe- 
nomenal,  existence  of  the  subject.  To  doubt  that  a  doubt  in¬ 
heres  in  a  non-phenomenal  subject,  is  not* to  doubt  the  existence 
of  the  doubt  itself  as  a  phenomenon,  or  even  as  a  phenomenon 
referable  to  the  subject  group  of  phenomena.  In  regard  to  the 
impossibility  of  doubting  the  existence  of  this  subject  group, 
which,  as  including  the  doubt  itself,  would  thus  neutralize  it, 
we  ought  to  distinguish  between  a  doubt  of  a  doubt  as  a  mere 
phenomenon  of  consciousness  generally,  that  is  as  unattributed 
either  to  subject  or  object,  and  the  doubt  of  the  validity  of  the 
attribution  of  it  to  the  subject.  There  can  be  logical  con¬ 
tradiction  only  in  respect  to  attribution,  either  explicit  or  im¬ 
plicit,  and  so  far  as  the  doubt  is  merely  a  phenomenon  of  which 
nothing  is  judged  or  known  but  its  actual  existence  in  conscious¬ 
ness,  a  doubt  of  it,  though  impossible,  is  yet  not  so  on  grounds 
of  logical  contradiction.  Its  actual  presence  would  be  the  only 
proof  of  its  presence,  its  actual  absence  the  only  proof  of  its 
absence.  But  this  is  equally  true  of  all  phenomena  in  con¬ 
sciousness,  generally.  If  in  reflection  we  examine  whether  a 
color  of  any  sort  is  present,  we  have  inquired,  not  merely  about 
the  bare  existence  of  a  phenomenon  of  which  the  phenomenon 
'  itself  could  alone  assure  us,  but  about  its  classes,  whether  it  is 
a  color  or  not,  and  what  sort  of  a  color;  and  we  should  attrib¬ 
ute  it,  if  present,  to  the  object  world,  or  the  object  group  of 

*  See  Mill’s  Examination  of  Hamilton,  chapter  v. 


II 


242 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


phenomena,  by  the  very  same  sort,  if  not  with  the  same  degree, 
of  necessity  which  determines  the  attribution  of  a  doubt  to  the 
subject-consciousness.  If  now,  having  attributed  the  color  or 
the  doubt  to  its  proper  world,  we  should  call  in  question  the 
existence  of  this  world,  we  should  contradict  ourselves;  and 
this  would  be  the  case  equally  whether  the  attribution  was 
made  to  the  outward  world,  as  of  the  color,  or  to  the  inward 
world,  as  of  the  doubt. 

There  may  be  different  kinds  of  reflective  doubt  about  either 
phenomenon.  We  should  not  ordinarily  be  able  to  question 
seriously  whether  the  doubt  belonged  to  the  class  “  doubts,” 
its  resemblance  to  others  of  the  class  being  a  relation  of  phe¬ 
nomena  universal  and  too  clear  to  be  dismissed  from  attention ; 
and  the  color  would  call  up  its  class  with  equal  cogency,  as 
well  as  the  class  of  surfaces  or  spaces  in  which  it  appears  al¬ 
ways  inherent.  But  we  might  doubt,  nevertheless,  seriously 
and  rationally,  whether  a  doubt  had  arisen  from  rational  con¬ 
siderations  in  our  minds,  or  from  a  disease  of  the  nervous  sys¬ 
tem,  from  hypochondriasis,  or  low  spirits.  So  also  in  regard  to 
the  color  and  the  forms  in  which  it  appears  embodied,  we  may 
reasonably  question  whether  the  appearence  has  arisen  from 
causes  really  external,  or  from  disease,  as  in  hallucinations. 

There  remains  one  other  source  of  misunderstanding  about 
the  comparative  certainty  of  “I  think,”  and  of  that  which  I 
think  about.  The  attributions  contained  in  the  latter  may  be 
particular,  empirical,  and  unfamiliar,  or  based  on  a  very  limited 
experience  and  on  this  account  maybe  uncertain;  while  the 
very  general  and  highest  attribution  of  the  thought  to  myself 
will  be  most  certain.  The  superior  certainty  of  the  clause  “  I 
think”  over  that  which  I  think  about  disappears,  however,  as 
soon  as  the  latter  is  made  an  attribution  of  equal  simplicity, 
generality,  and  breadth  in  my  experience;  as  when  I  say,  “I 
think  that  there  is  an  outer  world,”  or,  “  I  think  that  beings 
beside  me  exist.”  “To  think  that  I  think,”  is  not  more  prop¬ 
erly  the  formula  of  consciousness  in  general  than  “To  think 
that  a  being  not-I  is  thought  about.”  It  is  not  even  the  com¬ 
plete  formula  of  jvq^-consciousness,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  has 
several  forms  not  necessarily  coeval.  To  think  that  I  will, 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


243 


that  I  desire,  that  I  feel,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  to  refer  these 
several  forms  of  consciousness  to  the  thinking  subject;  or, 
more  properly,  to  refer  willing,  desiring,  feeling,  and  thinking 
all  to  the  same  subject  I”  ;  which  is  related  to  the  lattei 
attribute  more  especially,  merely  because  the  name  “I”  is 
given  only  in  and  through  the  recognition  of  this  attribute  in 
the  cognition  of  cogito.  To  infer  the  existence  of  the  subject 
from  the  single  attribute  of  thinking  would  be  to  unfold  only 
in  part  its  existence  and  nature ;  though  it  would  note  that  at¬ 
tribute  of  the  subject  through  the  recognition  of  which  in  re¬ 
flection  its  name  was  determined  and  connected  with  its  other 
attributes. 

The  latter,  namely,  our  volitions,  desires,  and  feelings,  are  in 
general  so  obscure  in  respect  to  the  particular  causes  which 
precede  them  and  are  anterior  to  their  immediate  determination 
or  production,  that  introspective  observation  in  reflection  can 
penetrate  only  a  little  way,  and  is  commonly  quite  unable  to 
trace  them  back  to  remote  causes  in  our  characters,  organiza¬ 
tions,  and  circumstances.  Hence,  the  conception  of  the  causes 
of  our  own  inward  volitions,  or  our  desires  and  intentions,  as 
being  of  an  inscrutable,  non-phenomenal  nature,  would  nat¬ 
urally  arise.  But  this  conception  would  probably  be  made 
much  more  prominent  in  the  unreflective  barbarian’s  mind,  by 
his  association  of  it  with  the  obscurity  to  him  of  the  inward,  or 
personal,  causes  of  outward  actions  and  expressions  in  others. 
Darkness  is  seen  where  light  is  looked  for  and  does  not  appear. 
Causes  are  missed  where  research  is  made  without  success. 
We  are  conscious  of  minds  in  other  men  and  in  other  animals 
only  through  their  outward  expressions.  The  inward  causes 
are  not  apparent  or  directly  known  to  us  as  phenomena;  and 
though  the  inference  of  their  existence  is  not  in  all  cases,  even 
with  men,  made  through  analogy,  or  from  an  observation  of 
their  connections  with  similar  outward  actions  and  expressions 
in  ourselves,  but  is  grounded,  doubtless,  in  many  cases  on  an 
instinctive  connection  between  these  expressions  in  others  and 
feelings ,  at  least,  in  ourselves,  yet  we  do  not  think  of  them  as 
really  inscrutable  in  their  natures,  but  only  as  imperceptible  to 
our  outward  senses.  They  have  their  representatives  in  the  pbe- 


244 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


nomena  of  our  imaginations.  These  would  be  but  vaguely 
conceived,  however,  in  many  cases.  Even  reverence  in  the 
barbarian’s  mind  might  prevent  him,  as  an  obedient  subject, 
from  attempting  to.  fathom  or  reproduce  in  his  own  imagina¬ 
tion  the  thoughts  and  intentions  of  his  majesty  the  king.  Rev¬ 
erence  is  not,  however,  in  any  case,  an  unreflective  or  thought¬ 
less  feeling.  It  would  not  be  like  the  feelings  of  the  sheep, 
which,  not  being  able  to  comprehend  through  its  own  experi¬ 
ence  the  savage  feelings  of  the  wolf,  would  only  interpret  his 
threatening  movements  as  something  fearful,  or  would  con¬ 
nect  in  an  instinctive  judgment  these  outward  movements  only 
with  anticipated  painful  consequences.  Reverence  in  the  loyal 
barbarian  subject  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  make  his  king  ap¬ 
pear  a  mere  automaton,  as  the  wolf  might  seem  to  the  sheep. 
The  commands  of  his  king,  or  of  his  deity,  would  be  to  him 
rather  the  voice  of  a  wisdom  and  authority  inscrutable,  the 
outward  manifestation  of  mysterious  power ,  the  type  of  meta¬ 
physical  causation.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  a  capacity  for 
strong,  unappropriated  feelings  of  loyalty  and  reverence,  de¬ 
manding  an  object  for  their  satisfaction,  have  also  descended 
to  those  thinkers  who  have  inherited  “  the  ontological  passion.” 
It  would,  therefore,  appear  most  probable,  that  the  meta¬ 
physician’s  invincible  belief  in  the  conception  of  the  will  as  a 
mysterious  power  behind  the  inward  phenomena  of  volition, 
and  as  incapable  of  analysis  into  the  determinations  of  char¬ 
acter,  organization,  and  circumstances,  arises  also  from  in¬ 
herited  feelings  about  the  wills  of  other  men  rather  than  from 
attentive  observation  of  the  phenomena  of  his  own. 

Science  and  scientific  studies  have  led  a  portion  of  the  hu¬ 
man  race  a  long  way  aside  from  the  guidance  of  these  inherited 
intellectual  instincts,  and  have  also  appeared  able  to  conquer 
them  in  many  minds  to  which  in  youth  they  seemed  invinci¬ 
ble.  Positivists,  unlike  poets,  become — are  not  born — such 
thinkers.  The  conception  of  the  causes  of  phenomena,  with 
which  these  studies  render  them  familiar,  had  small  beginnings 
in  the  least  noble  occupations  and  necessities  of  life,  and  in 
the  need  of  knowing  the  future  and  judging  of  it  from  present 
signs.  From  this  grew  up  gradually  a  knowledge  of  natural 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


245 


phenomena,  and  phenomena  of  mind  also,  both  in  their  out¬ 
ward  and  combined  orders  or  laws  and  in  their  intimate  and 
elementary  successions,  or  the  “laws  of  nature.”  The  latter 
are  involved  in  the  relation  of  effects  to  their  “physical” 
qauses,  so  called  because  metaphysicians  have  discovered  that 
they  are  not  the  same  sort  of  powers  as  those  which  the  in¬ 
vincible  instincts  look  for  as  ultimate  and  absolute  in  nature. 
But  this  is  not  a  new  or  modern  meaning  of  the  word  “cause.” 
It  was  always  its  practical,  common-sense,  every-day  mean¬ 
ing; — in  the  relations  of  means  to  ends;  in  rational  explana¬ 
tions  and  anticipations  of  natural  events;  in  the  familiar  proc¬ 
esses  and  observations  of  common  human  life  ;  in  short,  in  the 
relations  of  phenomena  to  phenomena,  as  apparent  causes  and 
effects.  This  meaning  was  not  well  defined,  it  is  true ;  nor  is 
it  now  easily  made  clear,  save  by  examples;  yet  it  is  by  ex¬ 
amples,  rather  than  by  a  distinct  abstraction  of  what  is  com¬ 
mon  to  them,  that  the  use  of  many  other  words,  capable  of 
clear  definition,  is  determined  in  common  language.  The  re¬ 
lations  of  invariable  succession  in  phenomena  do  not,  except 
in  ultimate  laws  where  the  phenomena  are  simple  or  element¬ 
ary,  define  the  relation  of  phenomenal  cause  and  effect ;  for, 
as  it  has  been  observed,  night  follows  day,  and  day  follows 
night  invariably,  yet  neither  is  the  cause  of  the  other.  These 
relations  belong  to  the  genus  of  natural  successions.  The  re¬ 
lation  of  cause  and  effect  is  a  species  of  this  genus.  It  means 
an  unconditional,  invariable  succession ;  independence  of  other 
orders  of  succession,  or  of  all  orders  not  involved  in  it. 

The  day  illuminates  objects;  the  night  obscures  them;  the 
sun  and  fires  warm  them ;  the  clouds  shed  rain  upon  them ; 
the  savage  animal  attacks  and  hurts  others :  these  facts  in¬ 
volve  natural  orders,  in  which  relations  of  cause  and  effect  are 
apparent,  and  are  indicated  in  the  antitheses  of  their  terms  as 
the  subjects  and  objects  of  transitive  propositions.  But  these 
relations  are  only  indicated ;  they  are  not  explicitly  set  forth. 
Metaphysics  undertakes  their  explication  by  referring  the  il¬ 
lumination,  obscurity,  warmth,  rain  and  hurt  to  powers  in  the 
day,  the  sun  and  fires,  the  clouds,  and  the  animal.  Modern 
metaphysics  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  maintain,  in  the  light 


246 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  science,  that  the  powers  in  these  examples  are  inscrutable, 
or  incapable  of  further  analysis.  Nevertheless,  when  the 
analysis  is  made,  and  the  vision  of  objects,  for  example,  is 
understood  to  arise  from  the  incidence  of  the  light  of  the  sun 
on  the  air  and  on  objects,  and  thence  from  reflections  on  all 
surfaces  of  objects,  and  thence  again  from  diffused  reflections 
falling  partly  on  our  eyes,  and  so  on  to  the  full  realization  of 
vision  in  the  brain,  all  according  to  determinate  laws  of  suc¬ 
cession, — an  analysis  which  sets  forth  those  elementary  invari¬ 
able  orders,  or  ultimate  and  independent  laws  of  succession 
in  phenomena,  to  which,  in  their  independent  combinations, 
science  refers  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect; — when  this 
analysis  has  been  made,  then  metaphysics  interposes,  and, 
from  its  ancient  habits  of  thought,  ascribes  to  the  elementary 
antecedent  a  power  to  produce  the  elementary  consequent.  Or 
when  the  effect,  as  in  vision,  follows  from  the  ultimate  proper¬ 
ties  and  elementary  laws  of  great  numbers  of  beings  and 
arrangements, — the  sun,  the  medium  of  light,  the  air,  the 
illuminated  objects,  the  eye,  its  nerves  and  the  brain, — and 
follows  through  a  long  series  of  steps,  however  rapid,  from  the 
earliest  to  the  latest  essential  antecedent,  metaphysics  still 
regards  the  whole  process,  with  the  elementary  powers  in¬ 
volved,  as  explicated  only  in  its  outward  features.  There  is 
still  the  mystery  inherent  in  the  being  of  each  elementary 
antecedent,  of  its  power  to  produce  its  elementary  consequent ; 
and  these  mysterious  powers,  combined  and  referred  to  the 
most  conspicuous  essential  conditions  of  the  effect  (like  the 
existence  of  the  sun  and  the  eye),  make  in  the  whole  a  mys¬ 
tery  as  great  as  if  science  had  never  inquired  into  the  process. 

Metaphysics  demands,  in  the  interest  of  mystery,  why  an 
elementary  antecedent  is  followed  by  its  elementary  conse¬ 
quent.  But  this  question  does  not  arise  froqi  that  inquisi¬ 
tiveness  which  inspires  scientific  research.  It  is  asked  to 
show  that  it  cannot  be  answered,  and  hence  that  all  science 
rests  on  mystery.  It  is  asked  from  the  feelings  that  in  the 
barbarian  or  the  child  forbid  or  check  inquiry.  But,  being 
a  question,  it  is  open  to  answer;  or  it  makes  legitimate,  at 
least,  the  counter-question,  When  can  a  question  be  properly 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


247 


asked  ?  or,  What  is  the  purpose  of  asking  a  question  ?  Is  it 
not  to  discover  the  causes,  classes,  laws,  or  rules  that  determine 
the  existence,  properties,  or  production  of  a  thing  or  event? 
And  when  these  aie  discovered^  is  there  any  further  occasion 
for  inquiry,  except  in  the  interest  of  feelings  which  would  have 
checked  inquiry  at  the  outset?  The  feelings  of  loyalty  and 
reverence,  instinctive  in  our  natures,  and  of  the  utmost  value 
in  the  history  of  our  race,  as  the  mediums  of  co-operation,  dis¬ 
cipline,  and  instruction,  are  instincts  more  powerful  in  some 
minds  than  in  others,  and,  like  all  instincts,  demand  their 
proper  satisfaction.  From  the  will,  or  our  active  powers,  they 
demand  devotion;  from  the  intellect,  submission  to  authority 
and  mystery.  But,  like  all  instincts,  they  may  demand  too 
much;  too  much  for  their  proper  satisfaction,  and  even  for 
their  most  energetic  and  useful  service  to  the  race,  or  to  the 
individual  man.  Whether  it  is  possible  for  any  one  to  have 
too  much  loyalty,  reverence,  love,  or  devotion,  is,  therefore, 
a  question  which  the  metaphysical  spirit  and  mode  of  thought 
suggest.  For  in  the  mystic’s  mind  these  feelings  have  set 
themselves  up  as  absolute  excellencies,  as  money  sets  itself  up 
in  the  mind  of  the  miser.  And  it  is  clear  that,  under  these 
absolute  forms,  it  is  difficult  to  deny  the  demand.  It  is  only 
in  respect  to  what  is  reverenced,  loved,  or  worshiped,  or 
what  claims  our  allegiance,  that  questions  of  how  much  of 
them  is  due  can  be  rationally  asked. 

To  demand  the  submission  of  the  intellect  to  the  mystery 
of  the  simplest  and  most  elementary  relations  of  cause  and  ef¬ 
fect  in  phenomena,  or  the  restraint  of  its  inquisitiveness  on 
reaching  an  ultimate  law  of  nature,  is  asking  too  much,  in  that 
it  is  a  superfluous  demand.  The  intellect  in  itself  has  no  dis¬ 
position  to  go  any  further,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  no  impulse 
to  kneel  before  its  completed  triumph.  The  highest  generality, 
or  universality,  in  the  elements  or  connections  of  elements  in 
phenomena,  is  the  utmost  reach  both  in  the  power  and  the  de¬ 
sire  of  the  scientific  intellect.  Explanation  cannot  go,  and 
does  not  rationally  seek  to  go,  beyond  such  facts.  The  inven¬ 
tion  of  noumena  to  account  for  ultimate  and  universal  proper¬ 
ties  and  relations  in  phenomena  arises  from  no  other  necessity 


248  PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 

than  the  action  of  a  desire  urged  beyond  the  normal  prompt¬ 
ings  of  its  power.  To  demand  of  the  scientific  intellect  that 
it  shall  pause  in  the  interest  of  mystery  at  the  movements  of  a 
falling  body  or  at  the  laws  of  these  movements,  is  a  misappro¬ 
priation  of  the  quality  of  mystery.  For  mystery  still  has  its 
uses;  and,  in  its  useful  action,  is  an  ally  of  inquisitiveness,  in¬ 
citing  and  guiding  it,  giving  it  steadiness  and  seriousness,  op¬ 
posing  only  its  waywardness  and  idleness.  It  fixes  attention, 
even  inquisitive  attention,  on  its  objects,  and  in  its  active  form 
.of  wonder  “is  a  highly  philosophical  affection.”  So  also  de¬ 
votion,  independently  of  its  intrinsic  worth  in  the  mystic’s  re¬ 
gard,  has  its  uses;  and  these  determine  its  rational  measure, 
or  how  much  of  it  is  due  to  any  object.  In  its  active  forms 
of  usefulness  and  duty,  it  is  an  ally  of  freedom  in  action,  op¬ 
posing  this  freedom  only  in  respect  to  what  would  limit  it  still 
more,  or  injuriously  and  on  the  whole. 

The  metaphysical  modes  of  thought  and  feeling  foster,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  sentiments  of  mystery  and  devotion  in  their 
passive  forms,  and  as  attitudes  of  the  intellect  and  will,  rather 
than  as  their  inciting  and  guiding  motives.  These  attitudes, 
which  are  symbolized  in  the  forms  of  religious  worship,  were 
no  doubt  needed  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  barbarian,  as  they 
are  still  required  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  child  upon  serious 
contemplations  and  purposes.  Obedience  and  absolute  sub¬ 
mission  are,  at  one  stage  of  intellectual  and  moral  development, 
both  in  a  race  and  in  the  individual,  required  as  the  conditions 
of  discipline  for  effecting  the  more  directly  serviceable  and 
freer  action  of  the  mind  and  character  under  the  guidance  of 
rational  loyalty  and  reverence.  The  metaphysical  modes  of 
thought  and  feeling  retain  these  early  habits  in  relations  in 
which  they  have  ceased  to  be  serviceable  to  the  race,  or  to  the 
useful  development  of  the  individual,  especially  when  in  the 
mystic’s  regard  obedience  has  acquired  an  intrinsic  worth,  and 
submission  has  become  a  beatitude.  The  scientific  habit  of 
thought,  though  emancipated  from  any  such  outward  supports 
and  constraints,  is  yet  not  wanting  in  earnestness  of  purpose 
and  serious  interests,  and  is  not  without  the  motives  of  devotion 
and  mystery,  or  their  active  guidance  in  the  directions  of  use- 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


249 


fulness  and  duty,  and  in  the  investigations  of  truth.  It  does 
not  stand  in  awe  before  the  unknown,  as  if  life  itself  depended 
on  a  mysterious  and  capricious  will  in  that  unknown;  for  awe 
is  habitual  only  with  the  barbarian,  and  is  a  useful  motive  only 
in  that  severe  instruction  which  is  exacted  by  the  wants,  in¬ 
securities,  and  necessities  of  his  life,  while  among  the  partially 
civilized  it  often  constrains  the  thoughtless  by  a  present  fear  to 
avoid  or  resist  evils  really  greater  than  what  is  feared,  though 
less  obvious  to  the  imagination. 

Nevertheless,  the  whole  nature  of  the  modern  civilized  man 
includes  both  these  opposing  tendencies  in  speculation,  the 
metaphysical  and  scientific ;  the  disposition  to  regard  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  nature  as  they  appeared  naturally  and  serviceably 
in  the  primitive  use  of  language  and  reflection,  and  the  dispo¬ 
sition  of  the  Positivist  to  a  wholly  different  interpretation  of 
them.  A  conflict  between  them  arises,  however,  only  where 
either  disposition  invades  the  proper  province  of  the  other; 
where  both  strive  for  supremacy  in  the  search  for  a  clearer 
knowledge  of  these  phenomena,  or  where  both  aim  to  satisfy  the 
more  primitive  and  instinctive  tendencies  of  the  mind.  In  the 
forms  of  ontological  and  phenomenological,  or  metaphysical  and 
positive  philosophies,  this  conflict  is  unavoidable  and  endless. 
Deathless  warriors,  irreconcilable  and  alternately  victorious, 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  ground,  or  to  advantages  of  posi¬ 
tion,  continually  renew  their  struggles  along  the  line  of  develop¬ 
ment  in  each  individual  mind  and  character.  A  contrast  of  tend¬ 
encies  analogous  to  this,  which  involves,  however,  no  necessary 
conflict,  is  shown  in  the  opposition  of  science  and  poetry;  the 
oflie  contemplating  in  understanding  and  in  fixed  positive  beliefs 
the  phenomena  which  the  other  contemplates  through  firmly 
established  and  instinctive  tendencies,  and  through  interests, 
which  for  want  of  a  better  name  to  note  their  motive  power,  or 
influence  in  the  will,  are  also  sometimes  called  beliefs.  Dis¬ 
putes  about  the  nature  of  what  is  called  “belief/’  as  to  what 
it  is,  as  well  as  to  what  are  the  true  grounds  or  causes  of  it, 
would,  if  the  meanings  of  the  word  were  better  discriminated 
in  common  usage,  be  settled  by  the  lexicographer;  for  it  is 
really  an  ambiguous  term.  Convictions  of  half-truths,  or  inti- 


250 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


mations  of  truth,  coupled  with  deep  feeling,  and  impressed  by 
the  rhythms  and  alliterations  of  words,  are  obviously  different 
from  those  connections  which  logic  and  evidence  are  calcu¬ 
lated  to  establish  in  the  mind. 

The  poet  inherits  in  his  mental  and  moral  nature,  or  organic 
memory,  and  in  his  dispositions  of  feeling  and  imagination,  the 
instinctive  thoughts  and  feelings  which  we  have  supposed  habit¬ 
ual  and  useful  in  the  outward  life  of  the  barbarian.  In  the  mel¬ 
ody  of  his  verses  he  revives  the  habits  which  were  acquired, 
it  is  believed,  in  the  development  of  his  race,  long  before 
any  words  were  spoken,  or  were  needed  to  express  its  imag¬ 
inations,  and  when  its  emotions  found  utterance  in  the  music 
of  inarticulate  tones.  The  poet’s  productions  are  thus,  in  part, 
reproductions,  refined  or  combined  in  the  attractive  forms  of 
art,  of  what  was  felt  and  thought  before  language  and  science 
existed ;  or  they  are  restorations  of  language  to  a  primeval  use, 
and  to  periods  in  the  history  of  his  race  in  which  his  progeni¬ 
tors  uttered  their  feelings,  as  of  gallantry,  defiance,  joy,  grief, 
exultation,  sorrow,  fear,  anger,  or  love,  and  gave  expression  to 
their  light,  serious,  or  violent  moods,  in  modulated  tones,  harsh 
or  musical ;  or  later,  in  unconscious  figures  of  speech,  expressed 
without  reflection  or  intention  of  communicating  truth.  For,  as 
it  has  been  said,  it  is  essential  to  eloquence  to  be  heard,  but 
poetry  is  expression  to  be  only  overheard.  In  supposing  this 
noble  savage  ancestry  for  the  poet,  and  for  those  who  overhear 
in  him,  with  a  strange  delight  and  interest,  a  charm  of  natural¬ 
ness  and  of  novelty  combined  by  the  magic  of  his  art,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  conclude  that  all  savage  natures  are  noble,  or  have 
in  them  the  germs  of  the  poet’s  inspiration.  It  is  more  probable 
that  most  of  the  races  which  have  remained  in  a  savage  state 
have  retained  a  more  primitive  condition,  in  many  respects, 
than  that  of  civilized  men,  because  they  lacked  some  qualities 
possessed  by  the  noble  savage  which  have  advanced  him  to  the 
civilized  state,  and  because  they  have  been  isolated  from  the 
effects  of  such  qualities  either  to  improve  or  exterminate  them. 
The  noble  savage  is  not,  at  any  rate,  now  to  be  found.  Weed¬ 
ing  out  the  more  stupid  and  brutal  varieties  has,  doubtless,  been 
the  effective  method  of  nature  in  the  culture  of  the  nobler  qualfi 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS . 


251 


ties  of  men,  at  least  in  that  state  of  nature  which  was  one  of 
warfare. 

% 

It  is  a  common  misconception  of  the  theory  of  evolution  to 
suppose  that  any  one  of  contemporary  races,  or  species  de¬ 
rived  from  a  common  origin,  fully  represents  the  characters 
of  its  progenitors,  or  that  they  are  not  all  more  or  less  diver¬ 
gent  forms  of  an  original  race ;  the  ape,  for  example^  as  well 
as  the  man,  from  a  more  remote  stock,  or  the  present  savage 
man,  as  well  as  the  civilized  one,  from  a  more  recent  common 
origin.  Original  differences  within  a  race  are,  indeed,  the  con¬ 
ditions  of  such  divergences,  or  separations  of  a  race  into  several ; 
and  original  superiorities,  though  slight  at  first  and  accidental, 
were  thus  the  conditions  of  the  survival  of  those  who  possessed 
them,  and  of  the  extinction  of  others  from  their  struggles  in 
warfare,  in  gallantry,  and  for  subsistence.  The  secondary 
distinctions  of  sex,  or  contrasts  in  the  personal  attractions, 
in  the  forms,  movements,  aspects,  voices,  and  even  in  some 
mental  dispositions  of  men  and  women,  are,  on  the  whole, 
greatest  in  the  races  which  have  accomplished  most,  not 
merely  in  science  and  the  useful  arts,  but  more  especially  in 
the  arts  of  sculpture,  painting,  music,  and  poetry.  And  this  in 
the  theory  of  evolution  is  not  an  accidental  conjunction,  but  a 
connection  through  a  common  origin.  Love  is  still  the  theme 
of  poets,  and  his  words  are  measured  by  laws  of  rhythm,  which 
in  a  primeval  race  served  in  vocal  music,  with  other  charms,  to 
allure  in  the  contests  of  gallantry.  There  would,  doubtless, 
have  arisen  from  these  rivalries  a  sort  of  self-attention,*  or  an 
outward  self-consciousness,  which,  together  with  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  themselves  as  causes  distinct  from  the  wills  or  agencies 
of  other  beings,  and  as  having  feelings,  or  passive  powers,  and 
desires,  or  latent  volitions,  not  shared  by  others,  served  in  the 
case  of  the  primitive  men  as  bases  of  reference  in  their  first  at¬ 
tention  to  the  phenomena  of  thought  in  their  minds,  when  these 
became  sufficiently  vivid  to  engage  attention  in  the  revival  of 
trains  of  images  through  acts  of  reflection.  The  consummate 
self-consciousness,  expressed  by  “  I  think,”  needed  for  its  gen- 


*  See  Darwin’s  Expression  of  the  Emotions  in  Men  and  Animals,  Theory  of  Blushing, 

chapter  xiii. 


252 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISC  US S IONS. 


esis  only  the  power  of  attending  to  the  phenomena  of  thought 
as  signs  of  other  thoughts,  or  of  images  revived  from  memory, 
with  a  reference  of  them  to  a  subject ;  that  is,  to  a  something 
possessing  other  attributes,  or  to  a  group  of  co-existent  phe¬ 
nomena.  The  most  distinct  attention  to  this  being,  or  subject, 
of  volitions,  desires,  feelings,  outward  expressions,  and  thoughts 
required  a  name  for  the  subject,  as  other  names  were  required 
for  the  most  distinct  attention  to  the  several  phenomena  them¬ 
selves. 

This  view  of  the  origin  of  self-consciousness  is  by  no  means 
necessarily  involved  in  the  much  more  certain  and  clearly  ap¬ 
parent  agency  of  natural  selection  in  the  process  of  develop¬ 
ment.  For  natural  selection  is  not  essentially  concerned  in  the 
fii'st  production  of  any  form,  structure,  power,  or  habit,  but 
only  in  perpetuating  and  improving  those  which  have  arisen 
from  any  cause  whatever.  Its  agency  is  the  same  in  preserving 
and  increasing  a  serviceable  and  heritable  feature  in  any  form 
of  life,  whether  this  service  be  incidental  to  some  other  already 
existing  and  useful  poAver  which  is  turned  to  account  in  some 
new  direction,  or  be  the  unique  and  isolated  service  of  some 
newly  and  arbitrarily  implanted  nature.  Whether  the  poAvers 
of  memory  and  abstractive  attention,  already  existing  and  useful 
in  outAvard  perceptions  common  to  men  and  others  of  the  more 
intelligent  animals,  Avere  capable  in  their  higher  degrees  and 
under  favorable  circumstances  (such  as  the  gestural  and  vocal 
powers  of  primeval  man  afforded  them)  of  being  turned  to  a 
new  service  in  the  poAver  of  reflection,  aided  by  language,  or 
Avere  supplemented  by  a  really  new,  unique,  and  inexplicable 
poAver,  in  either  case,  the  agency  of  natural  selection  would 
have  been  the  same  in  preserving,  and  also  in  improving,  the 
new  faculty,  provided  this  faculty  Avas  capable  of  improvement 
by  degrees,  and  Avas  not  perfect  from  the  first.’  The  origin  of 
that  which  through  service  to  life  has  been  preserved,  is  to  this 
process  arbitrary,  indifferent,  accidental  (in  the  logical  sense 
of  this  Avord),  or  non-essential.  This  origin  has  no  part  in  the 
process,  and  is  of  importance  Avith  reference  to  it  only  in  de¬ 
termining  hoAv  much  it  has  to  do  to  complete  the  Avork  of  cre¬ 
ation.  For  if  a  faculty  has  small  beginnings,  and  rises  to  great 


/ 


E  VOL  UTION  OF  SELF-  CONS  CIO  US  NESS.  253 

importance  in  the  development  of  a  race  through  natural  selec¬ 
tion,  then  the  process  becomes  an  essential  one.  But  if  men 
were  put  in  possession  of  the  faculties  which  so  pre-eminently 
distinguish  them  by  a  sudden,  discontinuous,  arbitrary  cause 
or  action,  or  without  reference  to  what  they  were  before,  ex¬ 
cept  so  far  as  their  former  faculties  were  adapted  to  the  service 
of  the  new  ones,  then  selection  might  only  act  to  preserve  or 
maintain  at  their  highest  level  faculties  so  implanted.  Even 
the  effects  of  constant,  direct  use,  habit,  or  long-continued  ex¬ 
ercise  might  be  sufficient  to  account  for  all  improvements  in  a 
faculty.  The  latter  means  of  improvement  must,  indeed,  on 
either  hypothesis,  have  been  very  influential  in  increasing  the 
range  of  the  old  powers  of  memory,  attention,  and  vocal  utter¬ 
ance  through  their  new  use. 

The  outward  physical  aids  of  reflective  thought,  in  the  artic¬ 
ulating  powers  of  the  voice,  do  not  appear  to  have  been  firmly 
implanted,  with  the  new  faculty  of  self-consciousness,  among 
the  instincts  of  human  nature;  and  this,  at  first  sight,  might 
seem  to  afford  an  argument  against  the  acquisition  by  a  natu¬ 
ral  process  of  any  form  of  instinct,  since  vocal  language  has 
probably  existed  as  long  as  any  useful  or  effective  exercise 
of  reflection  in  men.  That  the  faculty  which  uses  the  voice  in 
language  should  be  inherited,  while  its  chief  instrument  is 
still  the  result  of  external  training  in  an  art,  or  that  language 
should  be  “  half  instinct  and  half  art,”  would,  indeed,  on  sec¬ 
ond  thought,  be  a  paradox  on  any  other  hypothesis  but  that 
of  natural  selection.  But  this  is  an  economical  process,  and 
effects  no  more  than  what  is  needed.  If  the  instinctive  part  in 
language  is  sufficient  to  prompt  the  invention  and  the  exercise 
of  the  art,*  then  the  inheritance  of  instinctive  powers  of  articu¬ 
lation  would  be  superfluous,  and  would  not  be  effected  by  se¬ 
lection;  but  would  only  come  in  the  form  of  inherited  effects 
of  habit, — the  form  in  which  the  different  degrees  of  aptitude 
for  the  education  of  the  voice  appear  to  exist  in  different  races 
of  men.  Natural  selection  would  not  effect  anything,  indeed, 


*  In  the  origin  of  the  languages  of  civilized  peoples,  the  distinction  between  powers  of 
tradition,  or  external  inheritance ,  and  proper  invention  in  art  becomes  a  very  important 
one,  as  will  be  shown  farther  on. 


254 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISC  US  SION'S. 


for  men  which  art  and  intelligence  could,  and  really  do,  effect, 
— such  as  clothing  their  backs  in  cold  climates  with  hair  or  fur, 
— since  this  would  be  quite  superfluous  under  the  furs  of  other 
animals  with  which  art  has  already  clothed  them.  The  more 
instinctive  language  of  gestures  appears  also  to  have  only  in¬ 
direct  relations  to  real  serviceableness,  or  to  the  grounds  of 
natural  selection,  and  to  depend  on  the  inherited  effects  of 
habit,  and  on  universal  principles  of  mental  and  physiological 
action.* 

The  language  of  gestures  may,  however,  have  been  sufficient 
for  the  realization  of  the  faculty  of  self-consciousness  in  all  that 
the  metaphysician  regards  as  essential  to  it.  The  primitive 
man  might,  by  pointing  to  himself  in  a  meditative  attitude, 
have  expressed  in  effect  to  himself  and  others  the  “  I  think,” 
which  was  to  be,  in  the  regard  of  many  of  his  remote  descendants, 
the  distinguishing  mark,  the  outward  emblem,  of  his  essential 
separation  from  his  nearest  kindred  and  progenitors,  of  his  met¬ 
aphysical  distinction  from  all  other  animals.  This  conscious¬ 
ness  and  expression  would  more  naturally  have  been  a  source 
of  proud  satisfaction  to  the  primitive  men  themselves,  just  as 
children  among  us  glory  most  in  their  first  imperfect  command 
,  of  their  unfolding  powers,  or  even  in  accomplishments  of  a 
unique  and  individual  character  when  first  acquired.  To  the 
civilized  man  of  the  present  time,  there  is  more  to  be  proud 
of  in  the  immeasurable  consequences  of  this  faculty,  and  in 
what  was  .evolved  through  the  continued  subsequent  exercise 
of  it,  especially  through  its  outward  artificial  instruments  in 
language, — consequences  not  involved  in  the  bare  faculty  it¬ 
self.  As  being  the  pre-requisite  condition  of  these  uses  and  in¬ 
ventions,  it  would,  if  of  an  ultimate  and  underived  nature,  be 
worthy  the  distinction,  which,  in  case  it  is  referable  to  latent 
natures  in  pre-existing  faculties,  must  be  accorded  to  them  in 
their  higher  degrees.  And  if  these  faculties  are  common  to  all 
the  more  intelligent  animals,  and  are,  by  superior  degrees 
only,  made  capable  of  higher  functions,  or  effects  of  a  new  and 
different  kind  (as  longer  fins  enable  a  fish  to  fly),  then  the  main 
qualitative  distinction  of  the  human  race  is  to  be  sought  for  in 


*  See  Darwin’s  Expression  of  the  Emotions  in  Man  and  Animals. 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF  CONSCLOUSNESS. 


255 

these  effects,  and  chiefly  in  the  invention  and  use  of  artificial 
language. 

This  invention  was,  doubtless,  at  first  made  by  men  from 
social  motives,  for  the  purpose  of  making  known  to  one  another, 
by  means  of  arbitrarily  associated  and  voluntary  signs,  the 
wishes,  thoughts,  or  intentions  clearly  determined  upon  in  their 
imaginations.  Even  now,  children  invent  words,  or,  rather,  at¬ 
tribute  meanings  to  the  sounds  they  can  command,  when  they 
are  unable  to  enunciate  the  words  of  the  mother  tongue  which 
they  desire  for  the  purposes  of  communication.  It  is,  perhaps, 
improper  to  speak  of  this  stage  of  language  as  determined  by 
conscious  invention  through  a  recognized  motive,  and  for  a 
purpose  in  the  subjective  sense  of  this  word.  It  is  enough 
for  a  purpose  (in  its  objective  sense)  to  be  served,  or  for  a  ser¬ 
vice  to  be  done,  by  such  arbitrary  associations  between  internal 
and  external  language,  or  thought  and  speech,  however  these 
ties  may,  in  the  first  instance,  be  brought  about.  The  inten¬ 
tion  and  the  invention  become,  however,  conscious  acts  in  re¬ 
flection  when  the  secondary  motives  to  the  use  of  language 
begin  to  exert  influence,  and  perhaps  before  the  latter  have  begun 
to  be  reflectively  known,  or  recognized,  and  while  they  are  still 
acting  as  they  would  in  a  merely  animal  mind.  These  mo¬ 
tives  are  the  needs  and  desires  (or,  rather,  the  use  and  impor¬ 
tance),  of  making  our  thoughts  clearer  to  ourselves,  and  not 
merely  of  communicating  them  to  others.  Uncertainty,  or  per¬ 
plexity  from  failures  of  memory  or  understanding,  render  the 
mnemonic  uses  of  vivid  external  and  voluntary  signs  the  agents 
of  important  services  to  reflective  thought,  when  these  signs  are 
already  possessed,  to  some  extent,  for  the  purposes  of  com¬ 
munication.  These  two  uses  of  language, — the  social,  and  the 
meditative  or  mnemonic, — carried  to  only  a  slight  develop¬ 
ment,  would  afford  the  means  of  recognizing  their  own  values, 
as  well  as  the  character  of  the  inventions  of  which  languages 
would  be  seen  to  consist.  Invention  in  its  true  sense,  as  a  re¬ 
flective  process,  would  then  act  with  more  energy  in  extending 
the  range  of  language. 

Command  of  language  is  a  much  more  efficient  command 
of  thought  in  reflective  processes  than  that  which  is  implied  in 


256 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


the  simplest  form  of  self-consciousness.  It  involves  a  command 
of  memory  to  a  certain  degree.  Already  a  mental  power, 
usually  accounted  a  simple  one,  and  certainly  not  involved  in 
“  I  think,”  or  only  in  its  outward  consequences,  has  been  de¬ 
veloped  in  the  power  of  the  will  over  thought.  Voluntary 
memory,  or  reminiscence,  is  especially  aided  by  command/ of 
language.  This  is  a  tentative  process,  essentially  similar  to 
that  of  a  search  for  a  lost  or  missing  external  object.  Trials 
are  made  in  it  to  revive  a  missing  mental  image,  or  train  of 
images,  by  means  of  words;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  revive 
a  missing  name  by  means  of  mental  images,  or  even  by  other 
words.  It  is  not  certain  that  this  power  is  an  exclusively  hu¬ 
man  one,  as  is  generally  believed,  except  in  respect  to  the 
high  degree  of  proficiency  attained  by  men  in  its  use.  It  does 
not  appear  impossible  that  an  intelligent  dog  may  be  aided 
by  its  attention,  purposely  directed  to  spontaneous  memories, 
in  recalling  a  missing  fact,  such  as  the  locality  of  a  buried 
bone. 

In  the  earlier  developments  of  language,  and  while  it  is  still 
most  subject  to  the  caprices  and  facilities  of  individual  wills  (as 
in  the  nursery),  the  character  of  it  as  an  invention,  or  system 
of  inventions,  is,  doubtless,  more  clearly  apparent  than  it  after¬ 
wards  becomes,  when  a  third  function  of  language  rises  into 
prominence.  Traditions,  by  means  of  language,  and  customs, 
fixed  by  its  conservative  power,  tend,  in  turn,  to  give  fixity  to 
the  conventions  of  speech;  and  the  customs  and  associations 
of  language  itself  begin  to  prescribe  rules  for  its  inventions, 
or  to  set  limits  to  their  arbitrary  adoption.  Individual  wills 
lose  their  power  to  decree  changes  in  language;  and,  indeed,  at 
no  time  are  individual  wills  unlimited  agents  in  this  process. 
Consent  given  on  grounds  not  always  consciously  determining 
it,  but  common  to  the  many  minds  which  adopt  proposals  or 
obey  decrees  in  the  inventions  of  words,  is  always  essential  to 
the  establishment  or  alteration  of  a  language.  But  as  soon  as 
a  language  has  become  too  extensive  to  be  the  possible  invention 
of  any  single  mind,  and  is  mainly  a  tradition,  it  must  appear  to 
the  barbarian’s  imagination  to  have  a  will  of  its  own ;  or,  rather, 
sounds  and  meanings  must  appear  naturally  bound  together, 


£  VOL  UTION  OF  SELF-  CO  NSC  10  US  NESS. 


257 


and  to  be  the  fixed  names  and  expressions  of  wills  in  things. 
And  later,  when  complex  grammatical  forms  and  abstract  sub¬ 
stantive  names  have  found  their  way  into  languages,  they  must 
appear  like  the  very  laws  and  properties  of  nature  itself,  which 
nothing  but  magical  powers  could  alter;  though  magic,  with  its 
power  over  the  will,  might  still  be  equal  to  the  miracle.  With¬ 
out  this  power  not  even  a  sovereign’s  will  could  oppose  the  au¬ 
thority  of  language  in  its  own  domain.  Even  magic  had  failed 
when  an  emperor  could  not  alter  the  gender  of  a  noun.  Edu¬ 
cation  had  become  the  imperial  power,  and  schoolmasters  were 
its  prime  ministers. 

From  this  point  in  the  development  of  language,  its  separa¬ 
tions  into  the  varieties  of  dialects,  the  divergences  of  these  into 
species ,  or  distinct  languages,  and  the  affinities  of  them  as 
grouped  by  the  glossologist  into  genera  of  languages,  present 
precise  parallels  to  the  developments  and  relations  in  the  or¬ 
ganic  world  which  the  theory  of  natural  selection  supposes. 
It  has  been  objected*  to  the  completeness  of  these  parallels 
that  the  process  of  development  in  languages  is  still  under  the 
control  of  men’s  wills.  Though  an  individual  will  may  have 
but  little  influence  on  it,  yet  the  general  consent  to  a  proposed 
change  is  still  a  voluntary  action,  or  is  composed  of  voluntary 
actions  on  the  part  of  the  many,  and  hence  is  essentially  dif¬ 
ferent  from  the  choice  in  natural  selection,  when  acting  within 
its  proper  province.  To  this  objection  it  may  be  replied,  that 
a  general  consent  to  a  change,  or  even  an  assent  to  the  reasons 
for  it,  does  not  really  constitute  a  voluntary  act  in  respect  to 
the  whole  language  itself;  since  it  does  not  involve  in  itself 
any  intention  on  the  part  of  the  many  to  change  the  language. 
Moreover,  the  conscious  intention  of  effecting  a  change  on  the 
part  of  the  individual  author,  or  speaker,  is  not  the  agent  by 
which  the  change  is  effected;  or  is  only  an  incidental  cause, 
no  more  essential  to  the  process  than  the  causes  which  produce 
variations  are  to  the  process  of  natural  selection  in  species. 
Let  the  causes  of  variation  be  what  they  may, — miracles  even, — 
yet  all  the  conditions  of  selection  are  fulfilled,  provided  the  va- 

*  See  article  on  Schleicher  and  the  Physical  Theory  of  Language,  in  Professor  W. 
D.  Whitney’s  Oriental  and  Linguistic  Studies. 


258 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


nations  can  be  developed  by  selection,  or  will  more  readily  oc¬ 
cur  in  the  selected  successors  of  the  forms  in  which  they  first 
appear  in  useful  degrees.  These  conditions  do  not  include  the 
prime  causes  of  variations,  but  only  the  causes  which  facilitate 
their  action  through  inheritance,  and  ultimately  make  it  nor¬ 
mal  or  regular. 

So,  also,  the  reasons  or  motives  which  in  general  are  not 
consciously  perceived,  recognized,  or  assented  to,  but  none  the 
less  determine  the  consent  of  the  many  to  changes  in  language, 
are  the  real  causes  of  the  selection,  or  the  choice  of  usages  in 
words.  Let  the  cause  of  a  proposed  change  in  language  be 
what  it  may — an  act  of  free  will,  a  caprice,  or  inspiration  even 
— provided  there  is  something  in  the  proposition  calculated  to 
gain  the  consent  of  the  many, — such  as  ease  of  enunciation, 
the  authority  of  an  influential  speaker  or  writer,  distinctness 
from  other  words  already  appropriated  to  other  meanings,  the 
influence  of  vague  analogies  in  relations  of  sound  and  sense 
(accidental  at  first,  but  tending  to  establish  fixed  roots  in 
etymology,  or  even  to  create  instinctive  connections  of  sound 
and  sense), — such  motives  or  reasons,  common  to  the  many, 
and  not  their  consenting  wills,  are  the  causes  of  choice  and 
change  in  the  usages  of  speech.  Moreover,  these  motives  are 
not  usually  recognized  by  the  many,  but  act  instinctively. 
Hence,  there  is  no  intention  in  the  many,  either  individually 
or  collectively,  to  change  even  a  single  usage, — much  less  a 
whole  language.  The  laws  or  constitution  of  the  language,  as 
it  exists,  appear,  even  to  the  reflecting  few,  to  be  unchanged; 
and  the  proposed  change  appears  to  be  justified  by  these  laws, 
as  corrections  or  extensions  of  previous  usages. 

The  case  is  parallel  to  the  developments  of  legal  usages,  or 
principles  of  judicial  decisions.  The  judge  cannot  rightfully 
change  the  laws  that  govern  his  judgments ;  and  the  just  judge 
does  not  consciously  do  so.  Nevertheless,  legal  usages  change 
from  age  to  age.  Laws,  in  their  practical  effects,  are  amelio¬ 
rated  by  courts  as  well  as  by  legislatures.  No  new  principles 
are  consciously  introduced ;  but  interpretations  of  old  ones, 
and  combinations,  under  more  precise  and  qualified  state¬ 
ments,  are  made,  which  disregard  old  decisions,,  seemingly  by 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


259 


new  and  better  definitions  of  that  which  in  its  nature  is  unal¬ 
terable,  but  really,  in  their  practical  effects,  by  alterations,  at 
least  in  the  proximate  grounds  of  decision  ;  so  that  nothing  is 
really  unalterable  in  law,  except  the  intention  to  do  justice  un¬ 
der  universally  applicable  principles  of  decision,  and  the  in¬ 
stinctive  judgments  of  so-called  natural  law. 

In  like  manner,  there  is  nothing  unalterable  in  the  traditions 
of  a  language,  except  the  instinctive  motives  to  its  acquisition 
and  use,  and  some  instinctive  connections  of  sense  and  sound. 
Intention — so  far  as  it  is  operative  in  the  many  who  determine 
what  a  language  is,  or  what  is  proper  to  any  language — is 
chiefly  concerned  in  not  changing  it ;  that  is,  in  conforming  to 
what  is  regarded  by  them  as  established  usage.  That  usages 
come  in  under  the  form  of  good  and  established  ones,  while  in 
fact  they  are  new  though  good  inventions,  is  not  due  to  the 
intention  of  the  speakers  who  adopt  them.  The  intention  of 
those  who  consciously  adopt  new  forms  or  meanings  in  words 
is  to  conform  to  what  appears  legitimate ;  or  it  is  to  fill  out  or 
improve  usages  in  accordance  with  existing  analogies,  and  not 
to  alter  the  essential  features  in  a  language.  But  unconsciously 
they  are  also  governed  by  tendencies  in  themselves  and  others, 
— vague  feelings  of  fitness  and  other  grounds  of  choice  which 
are  outside  of  the  actual  traditions  of  speech;  and,  though  a 
choice  may  be  made  in  their  minds  between  an  old  and  a  really 
new  usage,  it  is  commonly  meant  as  a  truly  conservative  choice, 
and  from  the  intention  of  not  altering  the  language  in  its 
essence,  or  not  following  what  is  regarded  as  a  deviation  from 
correct  usage.  The  actual  and  continuous  changes,  completely 
transforming  languages,  which  their  history  shows,  are  not, 
then,  due  to  the  intentions  of  those  who  speak,  or  have  spoken, 
them,  and  cannot,  in  any  sense,  be  attributed  to  the  agency 
of  their  wills,  if,  as  is  commonly  the  case,  their  intentions  are 
just  the  reverse.  For  the  same  wills  cannot  act  from  contra¬ 
dictory  intentions,  both  to  conserve  and  to  change  a  language 
on  the  whole. 

It  becomes  an  interesting  question,  therefore,  when  in  general 
anything  can  be  properly  said  to  be  effected  by  the  will  of  man. 
Man  is  an  agent  in  producing  many  effects,  both  in  nature  and 


2  Go 


PHIL  O  SOPH  I C A  L  DISC  US  S 10 NS. 


in  himself,  which  appear  to  have  no  different  general  character 
from  that  of  effects  produced  by  other  animals,  even  the  low¬ 
est  in  the  animal  series,  or  by  plants,  or  even  by  inorganic 
forces.  Man,  by  transporting  and  depositing  materials,  in 
making,  for  example,  the  shell-mounds  of  the  stone  age,  or  the 
works  of  modern  architecture  and  engineering,  or  in  commerce 
and  agriculture,  is  a  geological  agent;  like  the  polyps  which 
build  the  coral  reefs,  and  lay  the  foundations  of  islands,  or  make 
extensions  to  mainlands ;  or  like  the  vegetation  from  which  the 
coal-beds  were  deposited ;  or  like  winds,  rains,  rivers,  and  the 
currents  of  the  ocean ;  and  his  agency  is  not  in  any  way  differ¬ 
ent  in  its  general  character,  and  with  reference  to  its  geological 
effects  from  that  of  unconscious  beings.  In  relation  to  these 
effects  his  agency  is,  in  fact,  unconscious,  or  at  least  unintended. 
Moreover,  in  regard  to  internal  effects,  the  modification  of 
his  own  mind  and  character  by  influences  external  to  himself, 
under  which  he  comes  accidentally,  and  without  intention; 
many  effects  upon  his  emotions  and  sentiments  from  impressive 
incidents,  or  the  general  surroundings  of  the  life  with  which 
he  has  become  associated  through  his  own  agency, — these,  as 
unintended  effects,  are  the  same  in  general  character,  as  if  his 
own  agency  had  not  been  concerned  in  them, — as  if  he  had 
been  without  choice  in  his  pursuits  and  surroundings. 

Mingled  with  these  unintended  effects  upon  himself,  there 
are,  of  course,  others,  either  actually  or  virtually  intended,  and, 
therefore,  his  own  effects.  If,  for  example,  in  conformity  with 
surrounding  fashions  of  dress,  he  should  choose  to  clothe  him¬ 
self,  and  should  select  some  one  from  the  existing  varieties  in 
these  fashions,  or  should  even  add,  consciously ,  a  new  feature  to 
them  from  his  individual  taste  in  dress,  in  each  case  he  would 
be  acting  from  intention,  and  the  choice  would  be  his  own. 
But  so  far  as  he  has  thus  affected  the  proportions  among  these 
varieties,  or  tends  further  to  affect  them  by  his  example,  the 
action  is  not -his  own  volition,  unless  we  include  within  the 
will’s  agency  what  is  properly  said  to  act  either  through  or  upo?i 
the  will;  namely,  that  which,  by  an  undistinguished  influence, 
guides  taste  and  choice  in  himself  and  the  others  who  follow 
unconsciously  his  example.  Those  influences  of  example  and 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


261 


instinctive,  or  even  educated,  tastes,  which  are  not  raised  by 
distinct  attention  into  conscious  motives,  would  not  be  allowed 
by  the  metaphysician  to  be  parts  in  the  will’s  action.  It  would 
not  be  within  but  through  its  action  that  these  influences  would 
produce  their  unintended  effects.  According  to  the  less  definite 
and  precise  physical  theory  of  the  will’s  action,  these  effects 
might  be  regarded  as  voluntary;  but  then  the  choice  would  not 
be  different  in  its  character  from  that  effected  through  other 
kinds  of  physical  agency.  On  neither  theory,  therefore,  can 
unintended  effects,  or  the  effects  of  unrecognized  causes  acting 
through  the  will,  be  regarded  as  different  in  their  character 
from  the  general  results  of  selection  in  nature.  On  the  phys¬ 
ical  theory  of  the  will,  man’s  agency  is  merged  in  that  of 
nature  generally ;  but  according  to  the  metaphysician’s  more 
definite  understanding  of  voluntary  actions,  which  is  also 
that  of  common  usage,  intention  would  appear  to  be  the  mark 
by  which  to  determine  whether  anything  is  the  effect  of  the 
will  of  man,  except  in  an  accidental  or  non-essential  manner. 

An  apparently  serious  objection  to  this  test  arises,  however, 
in  reference  to  another  mark  of  voluntary  action,  and  of  the 
efficacy  of  the  will.  The  mark  of  1'esponsibility  (the  subject  of 
moral  or  legal  discipline,  the  liability  to  blame  or  punish¬ 
ment)  is  justly  regarded  as  the  mark  of  free  human  agency. 
But  the  limits  set  by  this  mark  are  beyond  what  is  actually 
intended  in  our  actions.  We  are  often  held  responsible,  and 
properly,  for  more  than  we  intend,  or  for  what  we  ought  to 
have  intended.  The  absence  of  intention  (namely,  of  the  inten¬ 
tion  of  doing  differently)  renders  us  liable  to  blame,  when  it 
is  involved  in  the  absence  of  the  more  general  intention  of 
doing  right,  or  of  doing  what  the  discipline  of  responsibility 
has  commanded  or  implied  in  its  commands.  Carelessness,  or 
want  of  forethought,  cannot  be  said  to  involve  intention  in  any 
case,  but  in  many  cases  it  is  blameworthy  or  punishable ;  since 
in  such  cases  moral  discipline  presupposes  or  presumes  inten¬ 
tion,  or  else  seeks,  as  in  the  case  of  children,  by  punishment  to 
turn  attention  upon  moral  principles,  and  upon  what  is  implied 
in  them,  whether  set  forth  in  instincts,  examples,  precepts,  or 
commandments.  But  this  extension  of  the  sphere  of  personal 


262 


PHIL  0  SO  PHI  C A  L  DISCUSSIONS. 


agency  and  accountability  to  relations  in  which  effects  i.pon 
will  and  character  are  sought  to  be  produced  by  moral  and 
legal  discipline,  its  extension  beyond  what  the  will  itself  pro¬ 
duces  in  its  direct  action,  has  nothing  to  do  with  strictly  scien¬ 
tific  or  theoretical  inquiries  concerning  effects,  in  which  neither 
the  foreseeing  nor  the  obedient  will  can  be  an  agent  or  factor, 
but  of  which  the  intellect  is  rather  the  recorder,  or  mere  ac¬ 
countant. 

If  the  question  concerning  the  origin  of  languages  were, 
Who  are  responsible  for  their  existence  and  progressive  changes, 
or  ought  to  be  credited  for  improvements,  or  blamed  for  defi- 
ciences  in  them  ?  or  if  the  question  were,  How  men  might  or 
should  be  made  better  inventors,  or  apter  followers  of  the 
best  inventions, — there  would  then  be  some  pertinency  in 
insisting  on  the  agency  of  man  in  their  developments, — an 
agency  which,  in  fact,  like  his  agency  in  geology,  is  incidental 
to  his  real  volitions,  and  is  neither  involved  in  what  he  in¬ 
tends  nor  in  what  he  could  be  made  to  intend  by  discipline. 
So  far  as  human  intentions  have  had  anything  to  do  with 
changes  in  the  traditions  of  language,  they  have,  as  we  have 
said,  been  exerted  in  resisting  them.  Hence  the  traditions  of 
language,  with  all  the  knowledge,  histories,  arts,  and  sciences 
involved  and  embodied  in  them,  are  developments  incidental, 
it  is  true,  to  the  existence  and  exercise  of  self-consciousness, 
and  of  free  or  intelligent  wills,  yet  are  developments  around 
and  outside  of  them,  so  to  speak,  and  were  added  to  them 
rather  than  evolved  from  them.  These  developments  were 
added  through  their  exercise  and  serviceableness  as  powers 
which  stand  to.  the  more  primitive  ones  of  self-conscious 
thought  and  volition  in  relations  similar  to  those  we  have  seen 
to  exist  between  the  latter  and  the  still  more  primitive  powers 
of  mind  in  memory  and  attention. 

These  relations  come,  first,  from  turning  an  old  power  to  a 
new  account;  or  making  a  new  use  of  it,  when  the  power,  de¬ 
veloped  for  other  uses,  acquires  the  requisite  energy  (as  when 
the  fins  of  a  fish  become  fitted  for  flying);  or  when  the  re¬ 
vivals  of  memory  become  vivid  enough  to  make  connecting 
thoughts  in  a  train  distinct  and  apparent  as  mere  signs  to  a 


EVOLUTION  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


263 


reflective  attention.  Secondly,  the  new  use  increases  the  old 
power  by  its  exercise  and  serviceableness  (as  flying  and  its 
value  to  life  make  the  fins  of  the  fish  still  longer),  or  as  the 
exercise  and  importance  to  life  of  reflective  thought  make  the 
revivals  of  memory  still  more  vivid,  and  enlarge  its  organ,  the 
brain.  Traditions  of  language,  or  established  artifices  of  ex¬ 
pression,  are  related  to  new  uses  in  a  power,  now  in  turn  be¬ 
come  sufficiently  energetic,  which  at  first  was  only  the  power  of 
associating  the  sounds  of  words  with  thoughts,  and  thence  with 
their  objects,  and  which  was  incidental  to  the  distinct  recog¬ 
nition  of  thoughts  as  signs,  or  suggestions,  of  other  thoughts. 

•  Developed  by  exercise  and  its  serviceableness  to  life  to  the 
point,  not  only  of  making  readily  and  employing  temporarily 
such  arbitrary  associations,  but  also  of  fixing  them  and  trans¬ 
mitting  them  as  a  more  or  less  permanent  language,  or  system 
of  signs,  this  power  acquired,  or  was  turned  to,  a  use  involving 
immeasurable  consequences  and  values. 

To  choose  arbitrarily  for  preservation  and  transmission  one 
out  of  many  arbitrary  associations  of  sounds  with  a  meaning 
could  not  have  been  a  rational  or  intelligent  act  of  free  will, 
but  ought  rather  to  be  attributed  to  chance,  lot,  or  fate;  or  to 
will ,  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  word  in  which  one  man  is 
said  to  have  more  than  another,  or  to  be  more  willful,  that  is, 
persistent  in  his  caprices.  To  make  by  decree  any  action  per¬ 
manent  and  regular  which  in  itself  is  transient  or  accidental 
requires  will ,  it  is  true,  in  one  sense,  or  sticking  to  a  point, 
merely  because  it  has  bee?i  assumed  ;  as  some  children  do  in 
imposing  their  inventions  upon  their  associates.  This  degree 
of  arbitrariness  appears  necessary  to  the  step  in  the  use  of 
signs  which  made  them  traditions  of  language,  permanent 
enough  to  be  the  roots  of  a  continued  growth  in  it, — a  growth 
which  must,  however,  have  determined  more  and  more  the 
selections  of  new  words,  and  new  uses  in  old  ones,  through 
motives  common  to  the  many  speakers  of  a  language;  such  as 
common  fancies,  instinctive  tendencies,  facilities,  allegiance 
to  authority,  and  associations  in  general — the  vague  as  well 
as  distinct  ones — which  were  common  to  many  speakers. 
These  causes  would  act  instinctively,  or  unconsciously,  as  well 


/ 
( 


264 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 


as  by  design.  Tyranny  in  the  growth  of  language,  or  the 
agency  of  arbitrary  wills,  persisting  in  their  caprices,  must 
have  disappeared  at  an  early  date,  or  must  have  become  insig¬ 
nificant  in  its  effects  upon  the  whole  of  any  established  lan¬ 
guage.  Intentional  choice  would  henceforward  have  the  design 
generally  of  conserving  or  restoring  a  supposed  good  usage ; 
though  along  with  unintended  preferences,  instinctively  fol¬ 
lowed,  it  would,  doubtless,  have  the  effect  of  slowly  changing 
the  usages  of  language  on  the  whole.  A  happy  suggestion  of 
change  would  be  adopted,  if  adopted  consciously,  with  refer¬ 
ence  to  its  supposed  conformity  to  the  genius  of  the  language, 
or  to  its  will,  rather  than  to  the  will  of  an  individual  dictator ; 
and  the  influence  of  a  speaker  would  depend  on  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  he  knew  best  how  to  use  the  language  correctly,  or 
was  intimate  with  its  genius.  But  suggestions  of  change 
would  be  more  likely  to  be  adopted  unconsciously. 

History  can  trace  languages  back  only,  of  course,  to  the 
earliest  times  of  their  representations  in  phonetic  writings  or 
inscriptions;  as  palaeontology  can  trace  organic  species  back 
only  to  the  earliest  preservation  of  them  as  fossils  in  the  rocks. 
In  neither  case  do  we  probably  go  back  to  periods  in  which 
forms  were  subject  to  sudden  or  capricious  variations.  Natural 
selection  would,  therefore,  define  the  most  prominent  action  of 
the  causes  of  change  in  both  of  them.  But  just  as  govern¬ 
ments  in  all  their  forms  depend  on  the  fixedness  and  force  of 
traditions,  and  as  traditions  gained  this  force  through  the  wills 
of  those  in  the  past  who  established  them  by  arbitrary  decrees, 
and  induced  in  others  those  habits  of  respect  and  obedience 
which  now  preserve  them,  so  in  language  there  was,  doubtless, 
a  time  when  will  was  the  chief  agent  in  its  formation  and  pres¬ 
ervation.  But  it  was  Will  in  its  narrower  sense,  which  does 
not  include  all  that  is  commonly  meant  by  volitional  action. 
The  latter  involves,  it  is  true,  persistence  in  some  elements, — 
a  persistence  in  memory  and  thought  of  consciously  recognized 
motives,  principles,  purposes,  or  intentions.  Volition  is  an 
action  through  memory,  and  not  merely  from  a  present  stimu¬ 
lus,  and  is  accompanied,  when  free  or  rational,  by  the  recogni¬ 
tion  in  thought  of  the  motive,  the  proximate  cause  of  the  action, 


E  VOL  UTION  OF  SELF-  CO  NSC  10  US  NESS. 


265 


the  reasons  for  it,  or  the  immediate  and  present  tendency  to  it, 
which  is  referred  back  in  turn,  but  is  not  analyzed,  nor  usually 
capable  of  being  analyzed  introspectively  into  still  more  remote 
antecedents  in  our  histories,  inherited  disposition,  characters, 
and  present  circumstances.  Those  causes  which  are  even  too 
feeble  to  be  introspectively  recognized  are  not,  of  course,  the 
source  whence  the  force  or  energy  of  will  is  derived ;  but  inde¬ 
pendently  of  their  directive  agency,  this  force  is  indistinguisha¬ 
ble  from  that  of  pure  spontaneity  or  vital  energy.  In  like 
manner,  the  force  of  water  in  a  system  of  river-courses  is  not 
determined  by  its  beds  and  banks,  but  is  none  the  less  guided 
by  them.  This  water-force  in  the  first  instance,  and  from  time 
to  time,  alters  its  courses,  but  normally  flows  within  predeter¬ 
mined  courses;  as  the  energy  of  will  flows  normally  within  the 
directive,  but  alterable,  courses  of  character  and  circumstances. 
The  really  recognized  motives  in  ordinary  volition  generally 
include  more  than  the  impulse  or  satisfaction  of  adhering  to 
an  assumed  position,  or  to  a  purpose,  for  the  will’s  sake,  as  in 
mere  will,  or  willfulness  which  is  an  overflow,  so  to  speak, 
of  energy,  directed  only  by  its  own  inertia,  though  often  useful 
in  altering  character,  or  the  courses  of  volition,  both  in  the  will 
itself  and  the  wills  of  others.  The  habit  of  conscious  per¬ 
sistence,  involved  in  will,  but  most  conspicuous  in  self-will, 
was,  together  with  its  correlatives,  respect  and  obedience, 
doubtless  serviceable  to  the  rulers  of  primeval  men,  the 
authors  of  human  government;  and  was,  doubtless,  developed 
through  this  serviceableness  before  it  was  turned  to  new  uses 
in  the  institution  of  arbitrary  customs  and  traditions.  It  thus 
illustrates  anew  the  general  principle  shown  in  the  several 
previous  steps  of  this  progress,  namely,  the  turning  of  an  old 
power  to  a  new  account,  or  making  a  new  use  of  it,  when 
the  power  has  acquired  the  requisite  energy;  and  the  subse¬ 
quent  further  increase  of  the  power  through  serviceableness 
and  exercise  in  its  new  function. 

This  power  in  the  wills  of  the  political,  military,  and  relig¬ 
ious  leaders  of  men  must  soon,  after  producing  the  apotheosis 
of  the  more  influential  among  them,  have  been  converted  into 
the  sacred  force  of  tradition;  that  is,  into  the  fas  or  commands 


12 


266 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  languages  themselves,  and  of  other  arbitrary  customs.  Hence¬ 
forth  and  throughout  all  the  periods  included  in  the  researches 
of  comparative  philology  in  which  written  remains  of  lan¬ 
guages  are  to  be  found,  it  is  probable  that  no  man  has  con¬ 
sciously  committed,  or  had  the  power  to  commit,  the  sin  of 
intentionally  altering  their  traditions,  except  for  reasons  com¬ 
mon  to  many  speakers  and  afforded  by  the  traditions  them¬ 
selves. 


/ 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES* 

Among  the  most  advanced  nations,  in  this  age  of  sceptical 
inquiry, — an  age  sceptical  in  the  old  and  good  sense  of  the 
word  (noting  that  close  examination  of  a  subject  which 
orthodox  philosophers  and  divines  have  for  so  many  centuries 
stamped  with  a  black  mark), — in  this  age  nothing  seems 
likely  to  escape  a  radical  re-examination  by  discussion  and 
experiment.  Those  matters  for  which  a  genuine  loyalty 
might  still  be  counted  on  to  conserve  past  usages,  the. means, 
influences,  and  appliances  to  which  scholars  and  men  of  cult¬ 
ure  acknowledge  their  deepest  indebtedness,  have  not  proved 
exceptions. 

That  there  should,  if  possible,  be  a  science  of  education, 
founded  on  something  more  than  the  traditions  of  the  art  or 
the  success  of  past  usages,  appears  to  be  the  present  demand 
of  reformers.  The  wide-spread  and  growing  conviction,  that 
universities  have  not  advanced  their  knowledge  of  their  duties 
to  mankind  or  to  their  several  nations  at  the  same  pace  as 
other  useful  institutions,  and  that  legislative  interference  ought 
to  undertake  what  the  incumbents  of  university  places  have 
neglected,  has  given  so  great  alarm  to  the  latter,  that  they 
have  turned  a  most  energetic  and  earnest  attention  'to  the  sub¬ 
ject.  The  discussion,  so  far,  has  developed  little  more  than 
the  many-sidedness  and  extreme  difficulties  in  practice  of  the 
problems  of  education.  This,  together  with  the  zeal  exhibited 
by  the  best  university  men,  to  bring  all  the  light  they  possess 
or  can  command  to  bear  on  the  discussion,  will  doubtless 
serve  the  purpose  about  which  they  seem  most  solicitous, — the 

*  From  the  North  American  Review,  July,  1875. 


<r 


268 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


purpose  of  avoiding,  if  possible,  revolutionary  measures,  and 
the  “  danger  that  any  reform  should  be  adopted  because  sonu 
reform  is  required.”  * 

The  problems  of  the  higher  general  education  of  the  univer¬ 
sities, — what  it  should  be,  whether  a  simple  curriculum  or  a 
variety  of  courses;  what  constitutes  nowadays,  a  liberal  edu¬ 
cation;  what  are  its  ends;  what  are  their  relative  ‘degrees 
of  importance  in  a  general  education,  or  in  one  preparatory  in 
a  general  way,  as  the  lower  school  training  is,  to  more  specific 
studies  or  pursuits, — these  problems  have  rather  been  exhibited 
in  their  difficulties  than  advanced  towards  a  solution  by  recent 
discussions.  It  is  well  observed  by  Mr.  Pattison,  Rector  of 
Lincoln  College,  Oxford,  that  the  difficulties  in  which  element¬ 
ary  education  is  implicated,  great  as  they  are,  are  difficulties 
of  action: — “  How  to  carry  through  what  we  know  ought  to  be 
done.”  “  The  university  question  is  quite  otherwise.”  “  There 
would  be  little  difficulty  in  getting  anything  done,  if  we  could 
see  our  way  clearly  to  what  we  do  want.”  To  make  the  re¬ 
formers  outside  of  the  universities  feel  this,  and  feel  that  the 
problem  can  only  be  solved  by  men  practically  acquainted  with 
the  business  of  education,  seems  to  be  one  of  the  aims  of  uni¬ 
versity  writers.  Yet,  we  imagine  that  those  who  demand 
reform,  in  the  name  of  the  nation,  look  upon  these  writers  as 
they  would  upon  men  pursuing  other  kinds  of  business,  who, 
in  the  practice  of  means  honored  by  long  usage,  and  especially 
in  devising  the  secondary  and  subsidiary  means,  are  apt  to 
have  but  dim  perceptions  of  the  ends  to  which  the  machinery 
or  appliances  of  the  art  are  as  a  whole,  or  should  be,  adapted. 
The  means  of  the  higher  education,  like  all  other  means  in 
practices  of  which  the  ends  are  manifold,  conflicting,  and  only 
vaguely  conceived,  are  naturally  enough  sought  for  by  these 
writers  in  that  kind  of  experience  which  is  embodied  in  customs 
and  institutions,  rather  than  in  philosophy  or  in  a  scientific 
analysis  of  the  experience. 

Next  to  the  claim  which  their  acquaintance  with  the  details 
of  practice  gives  to  university  writers  on  education,  they  rely 

*  Suggestions  on  Academical  Organization,  with  especial  Reference  to  Oxford.  By 
Mark  Pattison,  B.  D.  1868. 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


on  this  slowly  developed  experiment  (as  they  would  like  to 
have  it  regarded)  which  the  past  usages  of  universities  offer 
to  observation;  although  without  definite  purposes  or  guiding 
questions,  not  implicated  in  an  experience,  its  evidence  can 
hardly  with  propriety  be  regarded  as  experimental.  It  is  quite 
true,  and  a  just  complaint  of  conservative  thinkers,  that  the 
projects  of  reformers,  the  proposed  changes  in  subjects,  text¬ 
books,  and  methods  of  the  higher  education,  have  no  better 
title  to  be  regarded  as  experiments  philosophically  devised. 
Most  criticisms  on  what  universities  have  done  heretofore 
are  expressions  of  little  more  than  dissatisfaction  with  the  choice 
of  text-books,  or  even  of  subjects,  or  with  methods  of  teaching 
and  examination  in  subjects,  in  which  the  critics  either  have 
failed,  or  have  reached  only  a  slight  proficiency;  and  advice  is 
most  freely  proffered  by  those  who  are  least  acquainted  with 
the  matters  in  which  they  demand  reform. 

Upon  a  recent  discussion  in  a  scientific  periodical  con¬ 
cerning  what  modern  elementary  treatise  is  best  adapted  to 
take  the  place  of  Euclid  (now  considered  antiquated  by  the 
reformers,  though  still  supported  by  Cambridge  and  used  in 
the  best  English  schools),  Mr.  Todhunter*  observes  that, 
“what  appeared  singular  to  persons  accustomed  to  inquiries 
about  education,  was  the  readiness  of  persons  to  offer  advice 
with  most  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  circumstances.”  We 
may  add,  that  what  strikes  the  latter  sort  of  persons  as  equally 
singular,  is  the  firm  reliance  of  conservative  thinkers  like  Mr. 
Todhunter,  on  his  acquaintance  with  these  circumstances,  not 
merely  as  affording  evidence  that  existing  practices  are  good, 
or  can  be  made  very  good  without  revolution,  but  that  they 
are  practically  the  best.  Mr.  Todhunter  is  doubtless  right 
in  claiming  that  no  text-book  in  elementary  geometry  has  yet 
been  proved  superior  to  Euclid ;  but  he  does  not  appear  to  us 
quite  justly  aware  of  the  disadvantages  to  which  all  novelties 
in  the  trials  and  experiences  (we  will  not  say  experiments) 
in  education  are  unavoidably  exposed.  The  very  complete 
and  elaborate  machinery  of  examinations  in  the  classics  and 


*  The  Conflict  of  Studies,  and  other  Essays  on  Subjects  connected  with  Educatioa 
By  I.  Todhunter,  M.  A.,  F.  R.  S.  London,  1873. 


270 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


mathematics,  to  which  Cambridge  and  the  best  English 
schools  have  given  so  much  studious  attention,  would  be  want¬ 
ing  to  all  modern  studies,  and  would  need  to  be  devised  with 
equal  care  before  the  old  and  new  experiences  could  be  fairly 
compared. 

The  main  question  at  issue  needs  to  be  cleared  of  many  false 
charges  and  false  arguments,  which  are  as  good  or  as  bad  on  one 
side  as  the  other,  before  any  substantial  progress  can  be  made. 
Mr.  Todhunter’s  essays  will,  no  doubt,  do  service  in  this  way. 
No  one  could  be  found  in  any  seat  of  learning  better  qualified 
as  an  expert  witness  (the  capacity  in  which  he  appears  to  pre¬ 
fer  to  engage  in  the  discussion,  rather  than  as  an  advocate). 
A  long  residence  at  Cambridge,  and  much  experience  in  lect¬ 
uring,  and  in  examinations  on  mathematical  subjects  are  his 
main  qualifications.  Intimate  acquaintance  with  the  working 
of  the  machinery  of  examinations,  and  with  the  adaptation  of 
mathematical  studies  to  different  minds,  makes  his  testimony 
of  great  value,  however  little  regard  may  be  had  for  his  opin¬ 
ions  expressed  as  an  advocate.  It  is  interesting  to  find  such 
testimony  as  the  following:  That  the  majority  of  the  younger 
students  of  a  university,  not  distinguished  in  their  school-days 
for  mathematical  taste  and  power,  have  been  “  either  persons 
of  ability  whose  attention  was  fully  occupied  with  studies  differ¬ 
ent  from  mathematics,  or  persons  of  scanty  attainments  and 
feeble  power,  who  could  do  little  more  than  pass  the  ordinary 
examination.  I  can  distinctly  affirm  that  the  cases  of  hopeless 
failures  in  Euclid  were  very  few ;  and  the  advantages  derived 
from  the  study,  even  by  men  of  feeble  ability,  were  most  deci¬ 
ded.  In  comparing  the  performance  in  Euclid  with  that  in 
arithmetic  and  algebra,  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  Eu¬ 
clid  had  made  the  deepest  and  most  beneficial  impression ;  in 
fact,  it  might  be  asserted  that  this  constituted  by  far  the  most 
valuable  part  of  the  whole  training  to  which  such  persons  were 
subjected.” 

So  far  as  this  is  testimony  to  the  practicability  of  mathemat¬ 
ical  studies  for  all  minds,  it  is  valuable.  The  testimony  to 
the  value  of  such  studies  to  those  whose  abilities  are  of  a 
decidedly  different  bent  from  the  mathematical  may  still  be 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


271 


questioned.  Throughout  his  essays  Mr.  Todhunter’s  sole 
standard  of  value  in  a  university  study  is  that  quality  in  it  by 
which  the  machinery  of  lectures,  text-books,  and  “pass”  and 
competitive  examinations,  with  emoluments  and  honors,  can 
be  made  of  direct  assistance  to  the  student.  On  this  standard 
he  has  a  decided  preference  for  the  studies  of  the  old  curriculum. 
For  these,  and  for  advanced  modern  studies  in  applied  mathe¬ 
matics,  adequate  tests  of  examination,  and  rewards  of  assist¬ 
ance,  and  honor  for  success  in  them  are  means  which  are  within 
a  university’s  power  to  devise  or  command.  To  lay  out  courses 
and  afford  material  aids  in  studies  are  all  that  remain  of  what 
a  university  can  do  for  a  student,  unless  it  is  so  fortunate  at 
times  as  to  secure  the  services  of  men  of  genius  (not  to  be 
reckoned  among  its  ordinary  resources),  who  have  the  rare 
faculty  of  stimulating  the  student  to  hard  work  by  the  interest 
they  impart  to  their  teachings.  On  this  ground  Mr.  Tod- 
hunter  seems  to  us  to  be  strong.  It  may  be  justly  demanded 
of  a  university  not  to  think  too  highly  of  its  resources,  and  to 
set  its  machinery  aside  on  occasions  in  favor  of  greatly  endowed 
teachers. 

It  is  unfortunately  too  true,  however,  that  such  teachers  have 
not  always  had  the  genius  or  sense  to  know  that  the  excep¬ 
tion  is  only  properly  made  in  favor  of  such  as  themselves. 
They  have  very  frequently  shown  determined  hostility  to  any 
use  of  methods  which  differ  from  the  action  of  their  own  sponta¬ 
neous  powers  of  discipline,  and  which  are  really  all  the  poor 
means  that  a  seat  of  learning  can  constantly  and  systematically 
provide.  This  hostility  could  be  just  only  if  the  man  of  genius 
were  endowed  with  untiring  and  immortal  vigor,  or  could  edu¬ 
cate  by  his  inspiration  a  like  genius  in  one  or  more  of  his  pupils, 
who  might  then  take  his  place.  A  natural  genius  for  teaching 
any  subject — by  which  we  mean  for  making  the  pupil  an  accu¬ 
rate  and  hard  worker  in  it,  like  his  master — is  as  powerless  to 
reproduce  itself  in  a  pupil  as  university  examinations  are.  We 
cannot  by  examinations,  Mr.  Todhunter  observes,  “  create 
learning  or  genius;  it  is  uncertain  whether  we  can  infallibly 
discover  them ;  what  we  detect  is  simply  the  examination-pass¬ 
ing-power  of  the  candidate.”  Sir  Humphrey  Davy  said  “  that 


272 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


his  greatest  discovery  in  science  was  Michael  Faraday.” 
Genius  does  not’ make  a  genius,  but  discovers  him.  Nothing 
more,  not  so  much  even,  could  fairly  be  expected  of  the  best- 
devised  system  of  examinations. 

“The  adaptability  of  subjects  to  the  exigencies  of  examina¬ 
tions”  is  almost  the  sole  test  which  our  author  applies  to  the 
question  of  what  shall  be  the  course  or  courses  proper  to  a 
higher  general  education,  although  he  professes  not  to  lay  too 
great  stress  on  this  consideration,  seeing  that  it  is  quite  inap¬ 
plicable  to  courses  arranged  for  self-training.  In  regard  to 
the  value  of  the  natural  and  experimental  sciences  this  test 
appears  to  be  with  him  quite  decisive,  though  he  thinks,  if  can¬ 
didates  were  few  and  time  ample,  effective  examinations  in 
these  subjects  might  be  devised.  It  appears  to  us  that  this 
work  falls  within  the  province  of  a  university’s  duties  and  is 
made  feasible,  so  far  as  the  number  of  students  seeking  honors 
through  competitive  examinations  is  concerned,  if  the  univer¬ 
sity  also  makes  it  one  of  its  duties,  as  our  own  Harvard  has 
done,  to  lay  out  various  courses,  adapted  to  special  classes  of 
intellectual  tastes.  But  even  if  the  “examination-values”  of 
modern  subjects  should  never  be  made  equal  to  that  of  the 
subjects  of  the  old  curriculum ,  this  does  not  justify  the  univer¬ 
sity  in  not  making  such  provision  and  affording  such  aids  as 
it  can  for  the  action  of  a  more  genuine  motive  to  study  than 
its  ordinary  machinery  seeks  to  bring  into  service.  It  is  true 
that,  without  rigid  and  just  competitive  examinations,  these 
ulterior  motives  of  emolument  and  honor  could  not  be  fairly 
applied  to  studies  in  which  they  might  be  of  very  great  ser¬ 
vice;  but  modern  subjects  might  in  themselves,  and  not  un- 
frequently  do,  inspire  the  pupil  and  exact  from  him  labors  in 
a  degree  comparable  to  the  influence  of  the  most  eminent 
teachers.  Moreover,  proficiency  in  them  is  capable  of  tests 
by  teachers  who  closely  follow  the  student’s  work,  and  by 
such  original  work  in  written  theses  as  the  study  may  inspire. 
One  way  in  which  the  more  immediate  and  genuine  motive, 
the  love  of  a  study,  could  be  made  the  more  efficacious,  is  not 
to  tempt  the  student  away  from  it  by  too  great  rewards  for  pro¬ 
ficiency  in  those  studies  which  have  a  greater  adaptability  to 
examinations. 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


273 


It  is  quite  natural  that  the  importance  of  a  study  as  a  means 
of  general  education  should  be  constantly  confounded,  by  one 
with  Mr.  Todhunter’s  experience,  with  what  the  university  can 
do  directly  in  aid  of  it,  or  with  its  “  examination- value.”  Al¬ 
though  it  is  true  that  no  other  studies  compare  with  the  mathe¬ 
matical  in  the  exercise  they  require,  when  properly  taught,  of 
the  active  powers  of  intellect,  or  the  inventive  and  imaginative 
faculties  of  the  mind,  yet  it  is  not  true  that  the  mind  need 
always  be  in  a  merely  receptive  attitude  toward  such  studies 
as  history  or  the  natural  sciences.  Mr.  Todhunter  admits  that, 
in  the  study  of  a  new  language,  it  is  not  altogether  the  recep¬ 
tive  attention  that  is  exercised.  His  chief  objection  to  other 
studies  compared  to  the  mathematical  are,  however,  that  they 
afford  no  problems  in  their  earlier  stages ;  and,  as  he  adds,  “  it 
is  scarcely  conceivable  that  examination  papers  in  history  or 
the  natural  sciences  can  offer  any  tolerable  equivalent  in  merit 
and  importance  to  the  problems  of  mathematics.”  But  it  may 
be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  mathematics  offers  nothing 
but  the  most  uninviting  entertainment  to  a  receptive  attention. 
Its  truths,  independently  of  the  problems  they  suggest,  have  a 
weariness  even  for  the  adept ;  while  languages,  history,  and  the 
natural  sciences,  though  not  exercising  the  mind  with  prob¬ 
lems  in  the  earliest  stages  of  the  study,  could  and  should  be 
made  to  do  so  as  soon  as  the  active  powers  of  intellect  are 
mature  enough.  The  student  may  be  made  to  seek  for  more 
authentic  or  intelligible  evidence  both  in  history  and  the  natu¬ 
ral  sciences  than  what  his  text-books  afford;  or  he  may  be  led 
to  investigate  these  subjects  by  comparing  various  authorities, 
or  by  original  research;  though  how  he  could  be  effectively 
led  in  this  search  by  the  requisitions  of  a  formal  competitive 
examination  is  not  so  easily  determined.  To  many  thinkers 
on  the  subject  of  education  this  last  consideration  would  only 
tell  against  the  rigidity  of  the  type  of  competitive  examinations, 
which  has  been  developed  in  Cambridge  from  the  studies  of 
the  old  curriculum  and  in  modern  mathematics. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  great  qualities  required  and  devel¬ 
oped  in  philosophers  by  original  research  in  experimental 
sciences  are  not  produced,  or  even  approached,  by  the  repe- 


274 


PHIL  0  SO  PHI C A  L  DISC  USSIONS. 


tition  of  their  experiments.  These,  from  being  the  devices  ol 
the  most  vigorous  activity  of  genius,  become,  in  the  experi¬ 
mental  lecture-room,  or  even  in  the  student’s  own  hands  in 
the  laboratory,  comparatively  unimproving  amusements.  It 
is  one  of  the  weaknesses  of  genius  to  recommend  enthusias¬ 
tically  (what  is  generally  quite  impracticable)  the  course  by 
which  it  has  manifested  itself  and  reached  conspicuous  emi¬ 
nence.  Nevertheless  we  attribute  much  more  value  to  a  first¬ 
hand  acquaintance  with  experimental  processes  than  our  authoi 
appears  to  do.  What  he  considers  as  a  defect  for  which  “  some 
considerable  drawback  should  be  made  from  the  educational 
value  of  experiments,  so  called,”  is  their  failure.  This  would 
certainly  mingle  unavoidable  accidents  confusedly  with  the 
merits  of  the  student’s  performance  in  a  set  examination ;  and 
would,  doubtless,  disconcert  the  examining  board  or  teacher, 
as  it  often  has  the  most  skillful  lecturers.  But  these  very  fail¬ 
ures  have  in  them  an  important  general  lesson,  especially  use¬ 
ful  in  correcting  impressions  and  mental  habits  formed  by  too 
exclusive  attention  to  abstract  studies,  and  have  also  special 
lessons  in  their  respective  sciences.  From  the  general  lesson 
is  derived  an  adequate  appreciation  of  the  difference  between 
abstract  or  conditional  theorems  in  science,  and  their  exhibi¬ 
tion  in  concrete  phenomena.  The  difficulty  of  isolating  uni- 
•  versal  and  simple  principles  from  modifying  and  disturbing 
causes  in  actual  experiments  gives  an  impression  of  the  nature 
of  physical  laws  very  unlike  what  the  principles  of  geometry 
might  give,  when  not  corrected  by  such  lessons  from  the  failure 
of  experiments.  The  actual  circles  and  straight  lines  of  geom¬ 
etry  are  easily  made  to  embody  very  closely  the  theorems  of 
the  science.  But  this  is  not  their  real  use.  Geometrical  dia¬ 
grams  are  not  specimens  or  examples  of  the  universal  truths 
of  the  science,  but  are  rather  a  language — an  ideographic  lan¬ 
guage — by  which  these  truths  are  expressed  and  inferred. 

It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  need  geometrical  studies  of 
the  Euclidean  or  ancient  type  have  of  guidance  from  a  logic 
especially  treating  of  its  methods  and  limits,  that  a  recent 
English  work  on  Logic,  in  use  in  one  of  our  principal  universi¬ 
ties  (Jevons’s  “Elementary  Lessons  in  Logic”),  should  have 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


275 


represented  geometrical  reasoning  as  a  kind  of  induction, — a 
reasoning  from  a  particular  specimen  to  all  other  specimens. 
As  well  might  we  say  that  the  repetition  of  the  meaning  of  a 
proposition  expressed  in  words,  by  expressing  it  in  other  words, 
or  in  the  same  words,  first  printed,  then  spoken,  is  an  induct¬ 
ive  process.  It  is  true,  and  may  explain  this  confusion,  that 
the  axioms  and  postulates  of  geometry  are  inductions  from  ele¬ 
mentary  constructions,  real  or  imagined,  which  are  subse-  , 
quently  used  ideographically  to  express  them  and  their  combi¬ 
nations  in  the  deductions  of  the  science.  Mr.  Todhunter,  in 
his  essay  on  Elementary  Geometry,  avows  himself  opposed  to 
the  study  of  logic  in  conjunction  with  geometry,  as  of  too  small 
advantage  compared  to  the  addition  that  would  be  made  to  the 
labors  of  schoolmasters.  The  mere  fact  that  Euclid  expands 
his  reasonings  into  full  syllogistic  completeness  is  not  reason 
enough,  we  admit,  for  requiring  additional  work  by  the  teacher 
and  student  in  the  study  of  syllogisms,  or  in  the  analysis  and 
classification  of  arguments.  This  amplification  of  arguments 
was  really  made  by  Euclid  to  simplify,  not  to  add  to,  the  labors 
of  students  and  teachers.  But  logic  in  a  wider  sense — that 
is,  some  account  of  what  are  the  self-imposed  restrictions  of 
resource  and  method  which  characterize  the  ancient  geometry 
— would,  we  believe,  be  of  great  service  to  intelligent  students. 

It  is  to  the  struggle  against  these  restrictions  that  the  superior 
value  of  ancient  geometry,  as  a  mental  discipline,  is  mainly 
attributed  by  the  best  writers.  They  are  like  the  conditions  and 
restrictions  imposed  on  artists  and  poets  in  the  conventions  of 
the  fine  arts,  or  on  youths  as  laws  of  games  and  athletic  sports, 
to  which  the  intellect,  the  conscience,  and  honor  of  youth  are 
keenly  alive.  Such  restrictions  are  in  the  very  spirit  of  that 
spontaneous  ambition  for  self-formation  which  characterizes 
the  period  of  discipline ;  that  is,  the  period  from  late  childhood 
to  or  beyond  middle  youth. 

In  respect  to  the  special  value  of  experimental  practice  to 
the  comprehension  of  a  science,  Mr.  Todhunter  makes  a  most 
singular  remark,  perhaps  intended  as  a  humorous  one.  After 
observing  that  boys  would  doubtless  delight  in  such  practice, 
as  they  would  in  any  other  physical  pursuits,  like  foot-ball,  as 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


.  276 

compared  to  mental  exertion,  he  adds  concerning  the  value 
there  might  be  to  the  boy  of  seeing  with  his  own  eyes  the  facts 
of  science  illustrated,  that  it  may  be  said  the  youth  is  thus 
made  to  believe  the  fact  more  confidently;  and  he  then  re¬ 
marks:  “I  say  that  this  ought  not  to  be  the  case.  If  he  does 
not  believe  the  statement  of  his  tutor, — probably  a  clergyman 
of  mature  knowledge,  recognized  ability,  and  blameless  char- 
,  acter, — his  suspicions  are  irrational,  and  manifest  a  want  of 
the  power  of  appreciating  evidence,  a  want  fatal  to  his  success 
in  that  branch  of  science  which  he  is  supposed  to  be  cultivat¬ 
ing.”  The  power  of  appreciating  the  evidence  of  testimony 
would  doubtless  be  shown  to  be  deficient  in  the  case  supposed, 
or  if  the  boy’s  belief  was  what  the  illustrations  of  experiment  were 
useful  in  affecting.  But  the  more  direct  effect  of  illustration 
is  generally  supposed  to  be  to  aid  the  understanding  and  imagi¬ 
nation.  A  general  statement  about  matters  of  which  no  illus¬ 
trative  or  analogous  instances  have  ever  come  under  the  stu¬ 
dent’s  notice  is  necessarily  vague  or  even  unintelligible,  and  is 
rather  a  subject  of  simple  memory  (or,  so  far  as  belief  is  con¬ 
cerned,  of  simple  faith)  than  of  rational  comprehension.  The 
latter  consists  in  the  ability  to  pass  from  the  general  to  the 
particular,  or  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete,  and  to  return 
again.  This  is  the  ladder  of  the  intellect.  Any  number  of 
formulae,  without  a  training  of  judgment  and  imagination  by 
facts,  any  number  of  facts,  without  a  training  of  the  under¬ 
standing  by  assured  generalizations  actually  followed,  if  not 
originally  made  by  the  student,  will  fail  to  educate  or  disci¬ 
pline  the  faculty  which  is ,  par  excellence ,  the  mind.  We  do  not 
set  so  high  an  estimate  as  many  do  on  the  value  for  discipline  of 
experimental  practice.  Only  enough  of  discipline  in  the  actual 
practice  of  experiments  to  enable  the  student  to  study  his  text¬ 
book  intelligently  seems  to  us  desirable  for  the  purposes  of  a 
general  education,  and  independently  of  an  ambition  or  design 
of  extending  the  boundaries  of  an  experimental  science.  This 
might  be  accomplished  as  our  author  suggests,  and  as  Dr. 
Whewell  believed,  not  by  making  the  study  of  the  facts  in 
natural  and  experimental  science  a  part  of  the  business  of  a 
school,  but  rather  a  part  of  its  recreations. 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


277 


Mr.  Todhunter  apparently  believes  that  “the  amusing”  has 
generally  very  little  educational  value;  and  much  of  what 
others  would  dignify  by  the  name  of  “interesting”  he  seems 
disposed  to  place  in  this  category.  We  should  discriminate 
here  between  merely  spontaneous  and  idle  amusements  and 
those  pursuits  which,  because  they  happen  to  be  interesting  in 
themselves  or  at  the  outset,  may  not  on  this  account  be  the 
less  improving,  or  employ  less  energy  or  concentration  of  facul¬ 
ties  than  those  which  are  hard  or  austere.  Our  author  doubt¬ 
less  had  in  mind,  however,  a  class  of  diversions  lying  in  wait 
for  unwary  students,  and  forming  inseparable  parts  of  certain 
studies.  His  type  of  studies,  the  mathematical,  are  certainly 
not  amusing.  Even  their  interest  to  the  adept  is  of  a  pro¬ 
foundly  serious  character.  But  most  studies,  besides  the  math¬ 
ematical,  have  tempting  by-paths  leading  from  them ;  and 
geometry,  even,  is  not  without  a  danger  of  this  sort.  Mr. 
Todhunter  says:  “In  my  experience  with  pupils,  I  learned  to 
look  with  apprehension  on  any  exhibition  of  artistic  skill  among 
students  of  mathematics;  for  I  am  sure  that  it  is  not  a  fancy, 
but  an  actual  fact,  that  such  a  power  was  in  many  cases  an 
obstacle  to  success.”  'This  observation  is  given  in  illustration 
of  the  independence  of  each  other  of  different  kinds  of  observ¬ 
ing  powers.  The  chemist  is  not  (as  a  chemist,  we  should  add) 
better  qualified  than  another  man  to  be  a  botanical  observer, 
and  the  like  is  true  in  other  dissimilar  studies.  But  there 
is  a  more  instructive  application  of  the  author’s  observation 
on  the  relations  of  artistic  taste  to  geometry.  The  facility 
for  drawing  appears  to  be  the  sole  one  incident  to  the  study 
of  geometry  which  tempts  the  student  fatally  into  an  attractive 
by-path  from  the  difficult,  unattractive  road  of  the  science. 
The  comparative  freedom  from  diverting  attractions  is  one 
great  advantage  of  mathematical  studies,  and  we  think  that 
our  author’s  esteem  of  them  on  this  ground  is  just;  though  he 
appears  to  us  not  to  distinguish  clearly  enough  between  the 
value  of  difficulty  and  the  quality  of  irksomeness,  which  is  not 
of  the  essence  of  difficulty.  In  the  period  of  youth  and  disci¬ 
pline  difficulties  are  courted  and  welcomed,  and  do  not  neces¬ 
sarily  repel.  On  the  contrary,  the  true  end  of  disciplinary 


27  8 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


studies  appears  to  be  through  Labit  to  secure  attractiveness,  or 
the  character  of  play  for  useful,  though  perhaps  at  first  irksome 
exercises. 

Athletic  sports,  to  which  the  name  “ asceticism”  was  ear¬ 
liest  applied  in  its  secondary  sense  of  improving  exercises 
in  self-formation,  were  not  disagreeable  exercises  to  the  old 
Greeks;  and  although  Mr.  Todhunter  looks  upon  their  pres¬ 
ent  prevalence  in  English  universities  with  disfavor,  he  might 
have  drawn  from  them  lessons  in  the  science  and  art  of  mental 
education.  Even  the  training  of  the  lower  animals  is  not 
without  instruction  in  this  regard.  Mathematical  power, 
though  attainable  with  more  or  less  effort  by  nearly  every  one, 
as  our  author  has  testified,  is  so  difficult  of-  attainment,  and  so 
irksome  to  some  minds,  that  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
general  training  or  a  liberal  education  ought  not  to  be  sought 
in  many  cases  in  a  different  direction.  Care  should  be  taken, 
of  course,  that  the  tastes  opposed  to  mathematical  pursuits 
should  not  have  as  their  chief  the  taste  for  merely  amusing  or 
diverting  pursuits,  as  they  very  likely  do  in  most  cases. 
Mathematical  abilities  seem  to  us  strikingly  similar  in  their  re¬ 
lations  to  education  to  the  faculty  of  “retrieving”  in  hunting- 
dogs;  notwithstanding  that  metaphysicians  have  attempted  to 
distinguish  with  characteristic  profundity  between  the  mental 
powers  of  -the  lower  animals  and  those  of  men  by  calling  the 
capacity  of  the  one  for  improvement  in  mental  power  sus¬ 
ceptibility  to  training ,  and  that  of  the  other  a  capacity  for 
education.  It  is  a  familiar  fact  to  sportsmen,  that  unless  the 
young  dog  shows  a  fondness  for  “fetching  and  carrying”  it  is 
almost  useless  to  attempt  to  teach  the  accomplishment.  For 
though  fetching  and  carrying  can  always,  with  sufficient  pains, 
be  taught,  yet  the  means  of  doing  this  also  teach  a  vice  which 
makes  the  faculty  almost  useless.  The  dog  becomes  “hard- 
mouthed”  with  his  game.  If  an  attempt  to  remedy  this  fault 
is  resorted  to  by  training  him  to  carry  anything  which  it  is  dis¬ 
agreeable  to  hold  hard  in  the  mouth,  the  animal  will  generally 
give  up  retrieving  rather  than  the  vice. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  severe  training  needed  to 
develop  in  some  minds  even  a  tolerable  degree  of  proficiency 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


279 

m  mathematics  will  have  some  such  effect;  a  narrowing  effect 
similar  to  what  excessive  devotion  to  mathematical  pursuits 
produces  in  minds  of  greater  mathematical  ability.  “While 
engaged  in  these  pursuits  a  student  is  really  occupied  with  a 
symbolical  language  which  is  exquisitely  adapted  for  a  class 
of  conceptions  which  it  has  to  represent,  but  which  is  so  far 
removed  from  the  language  of  common  life,  that  unless  care 
be  taken  to  guard  against  the  evil  the  mathematician  is  in 
danger  of  finding  his  command  over  the  vernacular  diminished 
in  proportion  as  he  becomes  familiar  with  the  dialect  of  ab¬ 
stract  science.”  To  this  testimony  of  our  author  on  the  dis¬ 
advantage  of  mathematical  training,  we  may  add,  that  the 
supposed  value  of  mathematics  for  training  habits  of  accuracy 
is  delusive.  The  accuracy  belongs  to  the  science  objectively. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  ambiguity  or  vagueness  in  it,  or  the 
possibility  of  misleading  the  student  by  these  defects,  except 
by  gross  carelessness  on  his  part.  He  either  understands 
fully  and  accurately  a  proposition,  or  a  step  in  reasoning,  or 
he  does  not  understand  it  at  all.  There  is  in  the  study  no 
discipline  in  detecting  and  avoiding  the  faults  inherent  in  com¬ 
mon  language  and  in  the  expressions  and  reasonings  of  other 
classes  of  conceptions.  As  well  might  an  athlete  seek  to  be¬ 
come  an  acrobat  by  exercises  on  a  wide,  even,  and  guarded 
path. 

Again  our  author  says,  “I  do  not  suppose  that  the  candi¬ 
dates  who  attain  to  the  highest  places  in  the  Mathematical 
Tripos  are  deficient  in  knowledge  and  interest  in  other  sub¬ 
jects;  but  I  fear  that  omitting  these  more  distinguished  men, 
the  remainder  frequently  betray  a  rude  ignorance  in  much 
that  is  essential  to  a  liberal  education.”  But  this  disadvantage 
is  not  peculiar  to  mathematical  studies.  The  concentration  of 
a  dull  mind  on  any  single  but  extensive  study  or  class  of  con¬ 
ceptions  (like  the  legal,  for  example)  is  apt  to  leave  it  in  “rude 
ignorance”  of  many  subjects,  sofne  knowledge  of  which,  re¬ 
tained  in  the  memory,  is  the  sign,  rather  than  the  essence,  of 
an  effective  liberal  training.  What  constitutes  a  liberal  educa¬ 
tion  is,  as  we  have  said,  an  unsettled  question,  or  is  arbitrarily 
determined  by  conventional  standards,  which  are  less  regarded 


280 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


now  than  formerly.  But  it  obviously  has,  at  least,  these  two 
general  features;  namely,  an  acquaintance  with  a  wide  variety 
of  subjects,  adequate  and  correct  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  neces¬ 
sarily  superficial,  or  at  second  hand;  and,  secondly,  such  a 
mastery  of  some  one  or  two  subjects  in  their  methods  and  de¬ 
tails,  as  will  afford  an  adequate  measure  of  the  knowledge,  or 
rather  of  the  ignorance,  of  the  mind,  in  respect  to  subjects  of 
which  it  has  only  a  smattering. 

Another  disadvantage  in  mathematical  studies,  admitted  by 
our  author,  is  the  deficiency,  as  a  means  of  discipline,  of  the 
modern  and  higher  mathematics;  a  defect  which  is  incident  to 
their  very  perfections.  When  the  perfect  symbolism  of  the 
higher  geometry  is  “cultivated  for  examination  purposes,  there 
is  the  great  danger  that  the  symbols  may  be  used  as  substi¬ 
tutes  for  thought  rather  than  as  aids  to  thought.”  By  this  we 
suppose  is  meant  that  the  abridged  processes  and  notations  of 
modern  geometry  make  it  possible  for  the  candidate  to  carry 
the  theorems  and  their  proofs  in  mere  memory  for  the  most 
part,  and  without  understanding,  or  without  that  rational  mem¬ 
ory,  to  which  such  symbolism  is  a  true  art;  so  that  the  exam¬ 
ination  will  fail  of  its  end.  Yet  in  abstract  subjects  all  thought 
is  by  means  of  symbols ;  whether  these  are  the  words  of  com¬ 
mon  language,  the  comparatively  numerous  and  awkward  steps 
in  the  expression  and  inference  of  theorems  by  the  diagrams 
of  the  old  geometry,  or  the  refined,  abridged,  and  effective 
notations  of  modern  mathematics.  The  latter  are  substitutes 
for  thought  to  the  mathematician  who  has  mastered  them,  in 
the  same  sense  that  a  single  philosophical  term  is  a  substitute 
for  a  paraphrase  or  definition.  They  save  useless  thought,  or 
repetitions  of  thought  when  used  as  instruments  of  investiga¬ 
tion,  either  in  pure  or  applied  mathematics;  and  though  the 
thought  that  is  thus  avoided  may  be  useful  in  mere  discipline, 
yet  it  is  mainly  useful,  we  should  suppose,  by  serving  as  a  check, 
through  an  easy  transition  *  to  intuition,  for  the  guidance  of 
reasoned  processes,  in  which  the  mind  still  feels  insecure. 

The  true  value  of  these  notations  is  objective ;  or  is  in  that 
which  most  essentially  distinguishes  the  modern  from  ancient 
geometry,  its  direct  applicability  to  other  sciences.  The  an- 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


281 


cient.  geometry  is  no  longer  to  the  physical  philosopher  the 
misleading  type  it  once  was,  of  pure  principles,  or  of  rational 
comprehension.  It  is  nevertheless,  in  one  respect,  as  good  a 
discipline  as  ever  in  the  education  of  the  mind,  and  is  so  on 
account  of  its  very  defects  as  an  instrument  of  investigation. 
Its  self-imposed  restrictions  of  method  adapt  it  pre-eminently 
to  the  spirit  and  uses  of  discipline.  The  modern  mathematics 
are  really  as  distinct  from  it  in  essential  characteristics  as 
from  logic  or  grammar.  Compared  to  ancient  geometry,  the 
objective  ulterior  value,  the  usefulness,  independently  of  dis¬ 
cipline,  of  the  modern  mathematics  is  immense.  The  vari¬ 
ous  branches  of  exact  physical  science  are  closed  studies  to 
those  who  have  not  gained  possession  of  this  instrument 
of  all  exact  inquiry.  These  can  only  view  the  outside  of 
the  temple.  “Admission  to  its  sanctuary,  and  to  the  priv¬ 
ileges  and  feelings  of  a  votary,  is  only  to  be  gained,”  as  Sir 
John  Herschel  says  of  astronomy,  “by  one  means, — sound 
and  sufficient  knowledge  of  mathematics.”  The  relative  claims 
of  this  immediate  use  of  a  study  and  of  its  disciplinary  use  or 
“examination-value”  are  chiefly  considered  by  writers  on 
education  in  relation  to  the  limits  of  time  they  propose  for  dis¬ 
ciplinary  studies  in  general.  Mr.  Todhunter  objects  to  “the 
continuance  of  examinations  far  into  the  years  of  manhood,” 
and  also  “regrets  to  see  this  discipline  commenced  at  too  early 
an  age.”  In  the  former  usage  of  his  university,  “when  math¬ 
ematical  studies  were  regarded  mainly  as  a  discipline  they 
were  frequently  entirely  dropped  or  indefinitely  postponed 
when  the  period  of  undergraduate  discipline  was  completed.” 
The  most  eminent  scholars  were  thus  sent  forth  from  the  uni¬ 
versities,  having  made  only  a  tantalizing  approach  to  any  di¬ 
rect  use  of  mathematical  skill,  and  deficient  in  a  knowledge 
which  many  of  them  must  afterwards  have  felt  to  be  an  essen¬ 
tial  part  of  a  liberal  education. 

What  we  call  the  objective  value  of  a  science  is  what  should 
be  meant  by  calling  it  “useful  knowledge.”  For  if  the  spe¬ 
cific  utility  of  any  knowledge  is  not  indicated  by  calling  it 
useful,  this  term  can  only  mean  that  the  value  of  the  knowl¬ 
edge  is  not  especially  in  itself,  as  distinguished  from  ignorance, 


282 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


error,  or  stupidity;  or  is  not  the  kind  of  value  which  a  well- 
ascertained  but  isolated,  unrelated  fact  may  yet  have  as  a  mere 
fact;  such  as  the  number  of  leaves  on  a  given  bush.  In  the 
acquisition  and  memory  of  such  facts  idiots  not  unfrequently 
emulate  philosophers.  The  philosopher’s  advantage  is  that  he 
has  the  power  to  select  the  related  or  the  useful  facts  and  to 
forget  the  rest.  This  selection  is  the  prime  function  of  intel¬ 
lect.  The  usefulness  of  knowledge  is  in  its  relatedness  01 
ulterior  value,  whether  as  leading  to  other  and  wider  ranges 
of  knowledge,  or  as  a  discipline  of  the  mind,  or  even  as  leading 
to  “bread  and  butter.”  This  last  utility  is  what  the  unqual¬ 
ified  term  “useful”  generally  refers  to  in  common  language. 
Hence  the  objection  to  its  employment.  The  popular  teaching 
of  natural  and  experimental  sciences  by  lectures  has  in  recent 
times  been  practiced  apparently  on  the  ground  that  they  are 
useful  in  this  sense.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  astronomy, 
chemistry,  and  physics  are  deserving  of  honor  from  the  un¬ 
learned,  as  well  as  from  scholars,  on  account  of  the  great 
incidental  services  (not  generally  designed  or  anticipated  in 
their  pursuit)  which  they  have  rendered  to  the  arts  of  life; 
or  on  account  of  their  utility  in  the  narrowest,  most  destitute 
sense  of  the  word.  Wealth  and  leisure  are  indispensable 
requisites  to  the  philosopher’s  and  scholar’s  pursuits;  and  it 
may  be  said  that  the  means  by  which  these  are  secured  for 
their  pursuits,  in  any  community,  ought  to  be  prominent  ob¬ 
jects  of  their  study  and  care.  Yet,  if  such  had  been  the 
motives  of  physical  philosophers  in  their  pursuits  of  such  a 
subject  as  electrics,  or  magnetism  and  galvanism,  if  wider, 
vaguer,  less-defined  utilities,  or  relations  of  knowledge,  had 
not  been  the  almost  exclusive  motives  of  this  pursuit,  it  is 
almost  certain  that  the  many  useful  applications  of  electrics 
in  the  arts  would  never  have  been  reached.  The  same  is  true 
of  other  branches  of  physical  and  natural  science  and  of  ap¬ 
plied  mathematics.  The  utility  of  non-utilitarian  motives  (in 
the  narrowest  sense  of  the  terms)  justifies  the  motives  even 
from  the  lowest  grounds.  Where  it  is  demonstrable,  as  we 
might  suppose  it  to  be  of  comparative  philology  and  the  science 
of  language,  that  the  pursuit  can  never  lead  to  any  such  re- 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


283 


suits,*  and  is  even  deficient  in  applicability  to  university  exam¬ 
ination  purposes,  yet  even  here  the  spirit  of  the  pursuit  is  the 
same  as  in  natural  and  experimental  science,  and  it  is  to  this 
spirit,  rather  than  to  its  occasional  and  incidental  services,  in 
unforeseen?  ways,  that  honor  for  the  service  is  due. 

Not  only  the  knowledge  which  has  thus  been  popularly 
honored,  but  all  “useful  knowledge,”  in  this  wide  sense, 
should  be  fostered  by  the  universities.  That  which,  however, 
needs  especially  the  care  of  the  universities,  is  the  knowledge 
which  is  not,  and  does  not  promise  to  be,  useful  in  an  eco¬ 
nomical  sense ;  the  pursuit  of  which  is  not  stimulated  by  the 
prospects  of  rewards,  in  fees  or  wages,  or  in  any  ways  propor¬ 
tionately  to  the  exertion  made.  “If,”  says  Mill,  “we  were 
asked  for  what  end,  above  all  others,  endowed  universities 
exist,  or  ought  to  exist,  we  should  answer,  ‘To  keep  alive 
philosophy.’  ”  It  is,  of  course,  in  the  devising  and  working 
of  its  machinery  that  the  time  and  energies  of  the  officers  of 
a  university  are  chiefly  employed ;  by  which  young  men  are 
helped,  encouraged,  and  tested  in  their  pursuits  of  culture,  and 
are  then  sent  out  into  the  world  bettered  in  ability  and  char¬ 
acter  by  the  discipline  they  have  received.  “  How,”  it  may  be 
asked,  “can  this  be  a  service  to  philosophy,  and  to  the  knowl¬ 
edge  which  is  useful  only  in  a  higher  sense  ?”  “  Our  obliga¬ 

tions  are  to  the  nation,  not  to  philosophy,”  the  university  officers 
might  answer.  “We  are  bound  to  see  that  the  young  men 
who  come  to  us  become  thorough  and  accurate  students  of 
whatever  studies  they  pursue,  and  become  prepared  for  their 
duties  in  life  by  the  discipline  most  conducive  to  accuracy  and 
scholarship.  The  studies  best  adapted  as  means  to  these  ends 
are  the  studies  we  must  foster.  We  must  be  able  to  unmask 
ignorance  in  our  ‘pass’  examinations;  to  reveal  knowledge 
in  our  competitive  ones;  to  compare  competitors  justly  and  to 
reward  the  most  successful.  If  the  studies  chosen  for  these 
ends  are  not  sufficiently  philosophical,  then  we  must  sacrifice 
philosophy  to  our  duty  to  the  nation.” 

We  believe  we  have  not  overstated  in  the  above  the  views, 

*  The  recognized  political  value  to  English  rule  in  India  of  studies  in  these  sciences 
by  European  scholars  preclude,  however,  the  supposition  of  even  such  an  exception. 


284 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


and  the  point  of  view,  of  the  university  men  who  think  at  all 
about  the  subject.  Perhaps  more  attention  to  the  claims  of 
philosophy,  or  of  a  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  a  higher  knowl¬ 
edge,  would  have  avoided  or  remedied  the  defects  which  Mr. 
Todhunter  finds  in  the  Cambridge  system  of  examinations.  He 
is  disposed  apparently  to  go  back  to  past  usages,  though  he 
sees  little  to  encourage  the  hope  of  a  return.  “  In  the  study 
of  mathematics  formerly,  as  a  discipline,  a  general  knowledge 
of  the  principles  was  all  that  was  required;  now,”  he  adds, 
“  we  insist  on  a  minute  investigation  of  every  incidental  part 
of  a  subject.  Exceptions  and  isolated  difficulties  seem  to 
receive  undue  attention  on  account  of  their  utility  for  the 
examiner’s  purpose.”  Again  he  says,  “As  a  general  principle 
it  may  be  said  that  the  older  practice  in  education  was  to  aim 
at  the  discipline  of  the  mind,  and  that  the  modern  seeks  to 
store  it  with  information.”  And  again,  “  It  may  be,  I  think, 
justly  charged  upon  our  examinations  that  the  memory  is  over¬ 
cultivated  and  rewarded.  As  I  have  already  said,  examina¬ 
tions  in  some  subjects,  as  in  languages,  for  example,  must 
necessarily  be  almost  exclusively  tests  of  the  memory;  but 
what  we  may  regret  to  see  is  that  in  examinations  in  subjects 
with  which  the  reasoning  power  is  supposed  to  be  mainly  con¬ 
cerned,  the  memory  should  be  severely  taxed.” 

On  the  other  hand  he  repels  the  charge  against  the  exam¬ 
ination  system  that  it  encourages  cramming.  This  term  as 
applied  to  various  practices  seems  to  him  to  lack  any  fixed 
definite  meaning,  other  than  an  implied  censure  of  rigorous 
examinations  in  general.  He  conjectures  that  one  definite 
meaning  in  the  word  may  relate  to  the  tendency  in  examina¬ 
tions  to  over-cultivation  and  over-appreciation  of  the  memory. 
But  he  denies  that  this  is  a  fault  or  an  avoidable  one  in  such 
subjects  as  language ,  in  which  “it  would  seem,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  that  the  memory  must  be  the  principal  faculty  that 
is  tested.”  Special  and  exclusive  devotion  to  a  single  study 
in  completing  a  school-boy’s  preparation  for  an  examination 
does  not  appear  to  him  to  be  properly  called  cramming ,  or  at 
any  rate  to  deserve  the  reprobation  meant  to  be  conveyed  by 
“this  absurd  and  unmeaning  word.”  Mr.  Todhunter’s  repro- 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


285 


bation  of  this  word,  and  of  the  criticism  on  examinations  in 
general  conveyed  by  its  usq,  is  a  key  to  his  whole  theory  of 
education;  or  at  least  defines  the  position  from  which  his 
observations  were  made,  and  by  which  the  bearings  and  value 
of  his  testimony  should  be  estimated.  There  is,  it  seems  to 
us,  a  slight  inconsistency  in  objecting,  as  he  does,  to  the  value 
of  natural  and  experimental  sciences,  as  a  discipline,  on  ac¬ 
count  of  the  time  and  pains  needed  for  examinations  in  them, 
which  he  thinks  would  be  excessive;  at  the  same  time  admit¬ 
ting  in  regard  to  the  studies  he  approves  of,  that  undue  atten¬ 
tion  to  exceptions  and  isolated  difficulties  in  them  is  given  on 
account  of  the  utility  of  these  to  the  examiner’s  purpose. 
That  is,  he  contrasts  two  kinds  of  studies  in  respect  to  defects, 
which  it  appears  both  would  have,  but  which  are  really  due  to 
a  system  that  does  not  admit,  on  account  of  these  defects,  of 
application  to  both  kinds  at  once. 

The  examiner’s  purposes,  the  secondary  or  subsidiary  means 
of  discipline,  are  likely  in  his  pursuit,  as  means  are  in  all 
other  pursuits,  to  receive  undue  attention,  and  the  proximate 
means  to  the  true  ends  to  become  ends  in  themselves;  espe¬ 
cially,  as  we  have  said,  when  custom  or  long  usage  has  sanc¬ 
tioned  them  and  affords  the  easiest  escape  from  difficult  ques¬ 
tions.  How  to  make  the  studies  previously  found  useful  in  dis¬ 
cipline  still  more  useful;  how  to  avoid  defects  in  the  examina¬ 
tions,  to  prevent  the  memory  from  doing  the  proper  work  of  the 
reason  in  these  tests  of  proficiency;  how  to  prevent  the  evils, 
whatever  they  may  be,  of  cramming ;  are  the  highest  problems  in 
education  to  which  university  men  generally  give  their  attention. 
To  them  it  is  a  sufficient  objection  to  modern  studies  as  means 
of  discipline  that  they  are  not  fixed  or  finished  sciences,  but 
are  constantly  undergoing  changes  and  improvements  at  the 
hands  of  special  adepts,  which  are  more  fundamental  than  the 
changes,  improvements,  and  expansions  made  in  older  subjects 
solely  with  reference  to  their  use  in  education.  In  short,  the 
officers  of  universities  are  as  innocent  of  philosophy  as  most 
other  men  in  business  generally  are.  “The  fashionable  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  day”  disconcert  the  examiner.  If  these  are 
capable  of  inspiring  a  patient  and  laborious  attention  in  the 


286 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


student  by  their  own  inherent  interest,  it  is  well.  This  is  the 
way  in  which  they  may  be  useful,  but  the  professor  and  the  ex¬ 
aminer  with  his  rewards  of  assistance  and  honor  have  no 
concern  in  it;  or  their  duties  are  done  by  putting  the  new 
subjects  into  the  highest  examination  papers. 

The  corporate  spirit,  the  conscious  union  of  aims  and  the 
purposes  common  to  all  in  such  a  university,  is  not  a  very  high 
one.  Conservatism,  reverence  for  the  traditions  of  the  uni¬ 
versity,  attachment  to  it  as  a  family  of  scholars,  pride  in  it 
for  the  importance  of  its  services  to  the  nation  and  to  mankind, 
are  the  sum  of  its  conscious  virtues,  the  limits  of  its  aspira¬ 
tions.  If  so  be  philosophy  seeks  or  can  find  entertainment  in 
this  family,  she  is  welcome;  but  is  still  a  guest,  not  an  inmate. 
If  it  were  not  for  the  wealth  or  the  appropriations  of  it  which 
serve  to  consolidate  these  as  well  as  other  families,  it  might  be 
otherwise.  Philosophers  were  so  named  because  they  refused 
the  pittances  of  schoolmasters;  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
they  could  have  lived  without  them,  or  what  was  equivalent  to 
them  (though  called  by  a  different  name),  if  they  happened 
to  be  poor,  as  they  generally  were.  But  it  is  not  perhaps  by  a 
disposal  of  means  essentially  different  from  what  now  prevails 
in  universities,  that  a  remedy  for  their  defects  is  to  be  sought. 
It  is  rather  by  a  different  spirit  of  disposal.  In  order  that  the 
distribution  of  assistance  and  honors  might  be  perfectly  just ,  a  sys¬ 
tem  has  been  devised  which  inevitably  places  inferior  motives  to 
study  in  the  first  rank  of  incitements.  A  definite  though  facti¬ 
tious  direction  thus  given  to  the  efforts  of  teachers  is  the  best 
excuse  that  can  be  clearly  urged  for  this  promotion  of  inferior 
incitements  to  study.  Comparatively  few  candidates  continue 
throughout  their  academic  course  to  be  stimulated  by  them, 
the  majority  being  soon  distanced;  yet  these  few  are  those 
who  least  need  or  are  really  profited  by  such  discipline ;  while 
the  majority  have  their  studies  chosen  for  them  on  such  irrele¬ 
vant  grounds  as  would  be  disregarded  in  a  choice  of  courses 
arranged  for  self-training,  namely,  “the  adaptability  of  sub¬ 
jects  to  the  exigencies  of  examinations.” 

We  admit  the  difficulties  of  reform,  while  insisting  on  its  im¬ 
portance.  It  is  at  least  one  step  towards  it  to  recognize  this  im- 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


287 


portance,  and  to  know,  however  painful  the  consciousness  may 
be,  that  our  loyalty  and  pride  are  not  fixed  upon  the  highest 
objects;  that  a  justice  which  cannot  go  by  favor  is  yet  not  the 
greatest  justice.  It  is  not  the  justice  of  natural  families,  nor  of 
families  of  philosophers.  These  may  not  reach  practically  a 
very  high  type;  they  seek,  however,  for  justice  through  other 
means  than  regulations;  they  love  to  receive  it  at  the  hands  of 
honest  and  intelligent  generosity,  rather  than  win  it  from  the 
hands  of  inflexible  law.  One  would  suppose  that  in  a  univer¬ 
sity,  if  anywhere  among  men,  this  dangerous,  impracticable 
higher  justice  might  find  a  seat;  but  an  English  university  would 
be  the  last  place  where  one  would  wisely  seek  for  it.  Such  is  the 
influence  of  competitive  examinations,  that  the  justice  of  them 
is  more  hostile  to  this  rival  than  to  any  form  of  injustice.  This 
may  be  because  the  rival  is,  in  a  university,  a  really  formidable 
and  dangerous  one;  so  that  it  becomes  the  chief  business  of  the 
reigning  power  to  maintain  its  throne.  At  any  rate  Mr.  Tod- 
hunter  thinks  it  highly  important  that  the  justice  of  competi¬ 
tive  examinations  should  be  additionally  guarded,  by  exclud¬ 
ing  teachers  rigidly  from  the  examinations  of  their  own  pupils 
in  competition  with  others.  This  is  indeed  a  confession  of  an 
inherent,  rather  than  an  incidental  weakness  in  the  system. 

That  the  ends  of  a  liberal  education  are  manifold,  and  are 
vaguely  conceived  in  their  just  proportions;  that  the  means  to 
the  various  ends,  which  may  be  consciously  sought,  are  often 
conflicting;  and  that  the  attention  of  those  who  make  educa¬ 
tion  their  business  is  definitely  directed  by  a  traditional  curric¬ 
ulum  to  the  subsidiary  means  of  perfecting  its  use, — are  perhaps 
sufficient  explanations  of  the  feeble  attention  given  by  scholars 
to  the  higher  or  ultimate  ends  of  training.  That  our  author, 
with  all  his  study  and  experience  in  this  subject,  should  have 
failed  to  discover  any  definite  meaning  in  the  word  cramming 
beyond  its  implied  censure  of  rigorous  examinations  is,  there¬ 
fore,  not  surprising.  If  we  may  venture  to  say  in  a  sentence 
what  the  word  commonly  means,  when  used  intelligently,  we 
may  say  that  a  given  amount  of  studious  attention,  either 
rational  or  merely  mnemonic,  given  to  a  subject  exclusively 
and  for  a  short  time,  gives  to  the  mind  a  different  and  a  less 


288 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


persistent  or  valuable  hold  on  the  subject  than  the  same 
amount  and  kind  of  attention  spread  over  a  longer  time  and 
interrupted  by  other  pursuits.  This  mode  of  study  and  its  de¬ 
fects  are  what  we  conceive  the  word  cram  is  meant  to  express, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  censure. 

All  modes  of  study  involve,  of  course,  repetitions  of  such 
degrees  of  attention  to  a  fact  or  conception  or  inference  as 
the  student’s  power  can  command.  By  these  repetitions 
the  memory  is  made  firm  and  persistent.  But  there  are  two 
very  different  modes  of  repetition:  first,  by  repeated  acts  of 
direct  attention;  secondly,  by  repeated  recalls  or  recollections. 
The  latter  has  two  varieties,  namely,  being  repeatedly  re¬ 
minded  by  associated  thoughts  or  objects  of  the  things  re¬ 
membered,  and  performing  repeated  acts  of  voluntary  recol¬ 
lection  or  research  in  reminiscence.  The  last  is  the  only  active 
exercise  of  memory,  and  is,  of  course,  most  strengthening  to  a 
command  of  memory.  But  both  these  varieties,  and  especially 
the  latter,  require,  for  disciplinary  exercise  and  trial,  interposed 
intervals  and  diversions  of  attention;  and  the  longer  the  inter¬ 
vals  are,  if  not  too  long,  the  more  the  essential  or  rational,  and 
the  far-reaching  or  constructive  associations  of  thought  come 
into  play,  or  the  more  the  “reason”  is  cultivated,  according 
to  the  common  expression  of  this  practically  well-known  fact. 
The  reason  is  a  slow  growth,  and  cannot  be  forced  in  any 
study,  though  in  some  it  may  readily  be  blighted. 

There  is  a  popular  opinion,  shared  by  some  philosophers, 
that  great  memory  and  sound  judgment  are  incompatible,  and 
the  words  Beati  memoria  expectantes  judicium  express  this 
supposed  incompatibility.  And  there  is  a  basis,  doubtless,  for 
this  belief.  The  more  essential  or  rational  and  the  far-reach¬ 
ing  or  constructive  associations  of  thought  are  by  far  the  most 
durable,  and  constitute  the  inner  life,  or  sub-conscious  action 
of  thought;  though  the  associations  which  are  temporarily 
stronger  are  most  readily  commanded,  or  are  parts  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  volitional  power  of  the  mind.  In  other  words,  the  reten¬ 
tiveness  of  memory  as  distinguished  from  recollection,  or  from 
the  power  of  ready  recall,  depends  on  the  thoroughness  of  un¬ 
derstanding,  or  on  the  number  of  links  of  mental  habitude 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


289 


binding  together  and  leading  to  the  things  remembered.  The 
apparent  contradiction,  which  Sir  W.  Hamilton  regards  as  a 
real  one,  between  the  great  learning  of  the  philosophic  scholar, 
Joseph  Scaliger,  and  his  statement  that  he  had  not  a  good 
nlemory  but  a  good  reminiscence,  that  proper  names  did  not 
easily  recur  to  him,  but  when  thinking  on  them  he  could  find 
them  out,  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  distinction  between  the 
readiness  of  a  sensuous  or  first-hand  memory  by  rote,  and  the 
more  durable  memory  of  a  reflective  and  subtle  understanding, 
which  involves  a  greater  real  command  with  sufficient  pains, 
though  not  so  ready  a  command  of  remembered  objects.  There 
was  no  real  inconsistency  between  Scaliger’s  confession  and 
his  great  learning,  or  even  the  readiness  of  his  memory  on 
occasions.  His  own  testimony  is  worth  much  more  about  his 
own  memory  than  any  contemporary’s  judgment  from  his  talks, 
such  as  Sir  W.  Hamilton  quotes  in  his  Metaphysics  (Lecture 
XXX).  Reminiscence  appears  to  have  been  used  by  him  in 
the  sense  of  a  power  of  attention  to  recover  what  did  not  readily 
recur  to  him,  and  ought  in  this  sense  to  be  distinguished  both 
from  mere  retentiveness  and  from  readiness  of  recollection  ; 
the  latter  being  the  sense  in  which  he  used  the  word  memory. 
But  so  far  are  sound  judgment  and  memory,  in  a  wider  sense 
than  this,  from  being  incompatible,  that  judgment  is  in  fact  a 
form  of  memory, — the  most  subtle  and  serviceable,  though 
least  readily  commanded.  It  is  the  memory  or  the  retentive¬ 
ness  of  understanding,  or  of  the  generalizing  faculty;  just 
as  what  is  commonly  called  memory  is  the  retentiveness  of 
imagination,  or  of  the  faculty  of  individual  and  concrete 
representations.  The  soundness  or  excellence  of  both  forms 
depends,  of  course,  on  the  powers  of  attention  and  primary 
perception. 

“That  the  memory  is  over  cultivated  and  rewarded”  by  the 
incitements  and  exactions  of  examinations  in  Cambridge  is 
what  Mr.  Todhunter  admits.  That  this  is  due  to  the  mode  of 
study  they  encourage  is  what  he  has  failed  to  see.  The  abuse 
to  which  examinations  are  liable  of  testing  memory  when  the 
faculty  of  reason  is  the  one  under  examination  is  a  fault  which 
Mr.  Todhunter,  as  an  examiner  in  mathematics,  has  seen,  and 

13 


290 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


against  which  he  believes  the  examinations  can  and  should  be 
guarded ;  and  it  is  not,  therefore,  he  thinks,  one  which  ought 
to  condemn  the  system.  And  so  far  we  go  along  with  him, 
but  the  real  defect  of  the  system  is  subtler  than  this. 

Examinations  may  be  guarded  against  mistaking  a  simple 
memory  of  the  lowest  order,  or  mere  memory,  for  a  rational 
comprehension  of  a  subject;  but  the  faculties  trained  by  men¬ 
tal  discipline  are  not  so  simply  classified  as  writers  on  educa¬ 
tion  appear  to  think  when  they  enumerate  them  as  memory, 
reason,  and  invention  or  imagination.  There  are  various  kinds 
and  orders  of  memory,  and  the  highest  of  these ,  together  with  the 
highest  order  of  invention ,  involves  the  faculty  called  reason. 
The  faculties  which  ought  to  be  tested  by  examination  are 
properly  memory  and  invention  in  their  various  orders,  and  in 
the  kinds  in  which  various  studies  have  disciplined  them.  Ex¬ 
aminations  in  languages  and  history  are  mainly  tests  of  mem¬ 
ory,  Mr.  Todhunter  thinks;  but  how  different  are  the  orders 
of  memory  involved  even  in  these!  How  different  is  the  child’s 
memory  of  stories  from  that  of  a  student  of  comparative  my¬ 
thology!  A  quick,  retentive  child’s  memory  will  note  every 
variation  in  repeated  recitals  of  a  tale,  and  will  correct  the 
story-teller  on  points  which  seem  to  the  adult  mind  quite  trivial, 
but  are  in  fact  to  the  child  essential  enough  to  make  a  different 
story.  When  the  comparative  mythologist,  on  the  other  hand, 
finds  identity  amidst  the  varieties  of  legendary  tales  of  various 
races  and  nations,  his  memory  of  them  is  of  a  different  order 
from  the  child’s.  History  or  language  may  be  remembered  in 
these  different  ways,  and  no  system  of  competitive  examinations 
would  be  able  to  detect  the  difference.  A  difficult  construc¬ 
tion  in  an  author  writing  in  an  ancient  or  a  foreign  language 
might  be  satisfactorily  construed  by  the  candidate  either  because 
he  retained  in  simple  memory,  as  an  isolated  fact,  the  explana¬ 
tion  of  it  given  by  his  tutor  (which  might  be  more  rational 
than  the  student  could  gather  from  a  literal  translation),  or  be¬ 
cause  he  had,  like  his  tutor,  met  and  noted  parallel  or  analo¬ 
gous  constructions  in  the  same  or  in  other  authors ;  thus  exer¬ 
cising  his  reason  in  a  still  better  way.  How  vastly  superior, 
indeed,  the  latter  form  of  memory  is,  in  persistency,  in  utility 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


291 


for  professional  employments,  and  in  the  satisfaction  of  thought 
itself  as  a  mental  exercise !  If  this  cannot  be  distinguished  by 
formal  examinations  from  lower  orders  of  memory,  the  fact 
ought  to  tell  against  the  system  rather  than  against  those 
studies  which  are  ill-adapted  to  it,  and  which  include  almost  all 
except  mathematical  studies ;  or  even  include  these  when  the 
system  is  not  elaborated  to  the  perfection  it  now  has  in  Cam¬ 
bridge. 

A  broad  distinction  in  the  kinds  of  mental  association,  dom¬ 
inant  in  different  orders  of  memory,  is  familiar  to  psychologists, 
though  apparently  not  to  most  writers  on  education.  The  as¬ 
sociations  of  mere  contiguity  or  consecutiveness  are  character¬ 
istic  of  the  child’s  mind  and  of  imaginative  poetical  persons. 
A  low  order  of  invention  goes  along  with  them,  namely,  the 
order  of  poetical  or  artistic  invention,  which  is  intellectually  in¬ 
ferior,  and  is  not  cultivated  systematically  by  universities,  al¬ 
though  valuable  to  the  artist  or  poet,  and  highly  influential  in 
works  of  genius.  If  the  memory  dependent  on  this  kind  of  as¬ 
sociation  is  naturally  strong,  and  continues  after  childhood 
with  but  little  systematic  practice  or  effort,  it  may  be  regarded 
as  a  positive  advantage  to  the  mind,  as  a  form  of  native 
strength;  though  the  exercises  and  mental  habits  required  for 
the  cultivation  of  it  are  directly  opposed  to  those  needed  for 
the  cultivation  of  the  higher  or  rational  memory  and  invention. 
Committing  pages  of  rhythmical  verses  or  simple  elegant  prose 
to  memory,  though  not  exclusively  dependent  on  associations 
of  the  lowest  order,  yet  depends  very  largely  on  them,  and  in¬ 
terferes  as  a  habit  with  the  habits  which  bring  into  play  the 
other  kind  of  associations  which  psychologists  have  distin¬ 
guished,  namely,  the  associations  of  similarity.  This  kind  of 
associations  brings  together  resembling,  analogous,  or  identical 
parts  in  different  trains  of  contiguous  or  consecutive  impres¬ 
sions,  or  drops  from  these  trains  into  oblivion  all  the  parts  that 
have  not  with  the  rest  ties  of  this  sort,  or  else  the  contrasted 
ones  of  ^similarity.  The  associations  of  similarity  are  those 
of  rational  comprehension  in  memory  and  invention.  They 
dissolve  the  ties  of  the  other  sort,  which  are  relatively  so  strong 
in  children,  in  natural  arithmeticians,  and  often  in  the  unde- 


292 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


veloped  minds  of  idiots.  The  two  sorts  rarely  exist  together 
in  great  perfection,  or  except  in  men  of  eminent  genius,  whose 
native  powers  of  attention  are  equal  to  those  of  two  ordinary 
minds. 

Hence  for  minds  which  schools  and  universities  undertake 
to  train,  the  needed  discipline  is  not  the  training  of  two  dis¬ 
tinct  and  unrelated  faculties  (the  memory  and  reason),  by 
studies  specifically  chosen  to  test  their  proficiency ;  but  it  is 
the  supplementing  of  a  lower  and  original,  or  early  developed 
form  of  memory  and  invention  by  a  higher  one,  even  at  the 
expense  of  supplanting  the  lower  in  great  measure.  In  the 
most  rational  of  studies,  the  mathematical,  the  constituents 
which  depend  on  mere  memory,  or  the  lowest  kind  of  associa¬ 
tion,  are  the  fewest,  and  the  play  of  invention,  in  the  construct¬ 
ive  action  of  rational  imagination,  is  the  greatest.  Perhaps 
the  latter  is  too  great  for  a  symmetrical  training  of  the  mind ; 
since,  in  a  genuine  pursuit  of  mathematics,  the  lower  form  of 
memory  is  apt  with  ordinary  minds  to  be  enfeebled  by  it.  The 
lower  form  of  memory  is  still  a  very  valuable  one ;  though  the 
cheapness  of  books  and  writing-materials  dispenses  with  many 
of  its  services.  Even  cramming ,  or  the  getting  up  of  a  subject 
in  the  shortest  time,  which  depends  largely  on  powers  of  reten¬ 
tion  of  this  sort,  and  but  little  on  the  fixed  habits  formed  by 
studies  more  prolonged,  might  on  this  ground  be  commended; 
though  cramming  mathematics  for  examination  would  obvi¬ 
ously  not  be  the  best  course;  since  other  studies,  pursued 
properly,  would  more  directly  and  profitably  exercise  these 
powers,  by  the  concentration  of  attention. 

The  ability  to  “  cram,”  which  such  work  in  the  universities 
must,  of  course,  cultivate,  has  been  thought  to  be  an  element 
of  success  in  various  pursuits  of  life,  as  with  the  statesman, 
the  general,  the  lawyer,  and  with  men  of  business ;  but  we  are 
inclined  to  believe  that  the  use  in  these  pursuits  of  the  lower 
form  of  memory  is  secured  to  successful  men  by  their  ability 
to  stimulate  its  action  on  occasions  by  throwing  into  it  their 
superior  energies  of  purpose,  emotion,  or  will,  rather  than  by 
university  practice  of  this  sort.  Light  is  thrown  on  this  sub¬ 
ject  by  the  well-known  facts  in  psychology,  that  the  lower 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


293 


memory  depends  on  two  distinct  causes,  on  the  repetition  and 
on  the  intensity  of  impressions ;  and  that  impressions  which 
are  at  all  relevant  to  states  of  strong  emotion  are  more  deeply 
and  persistently  impressed  than  under  ordinary  circumstances. 
Even  trivial,  irrelevant  circumstances  attending  or  coming 
under  our  notice  in  states  of  strong  emotion  are  long  retained 
in  the  memory.  If  this  be  the  true  explanation  of  the  great 
service  which  the  lower  memory  sometimes  renders  to  eminent 
minds,  it  would  follow  that  it  is  not  by  the  direct  cultivation  of 
the  memory,  but  rather  by  cultivating  this  cause  of  it  that 
discipline  can  be  useful;  that  is,  by  exercises  which  stimulate 
to  energetic  action  the  emotions  and  the  will.  Athletic  train¬ 
ing  and  exercises  are  of  this  sort,  and  though  they  do  not 
employ  the  memory,  may  yet,  by  the  sustained  mental  effort 
required  in  them,  educate  the  character  to  a  better  command 
of  memory  on  fitter  occasions.  No  faculty  is  in  general  more 
susceptible  of  training  than  that  of  attention  in  the  directions 
in  which  it  is  spontaneous ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  no  faculty 
is  more  dependent  on  the  native  aptitudes  and  powers  which 
direct  it.  The  antithesis  is  due  to  the  extreme  generality  of 
the  term  “  attention,”  which  includes  in  its  meaning  both  the 
original  or  spontaneous  powers  of  the  mind,  and  those  which 
discipline  is  capable  of  perfecting  or  improving  with  reference 
to  any  standard.  Much  of  the  superiority  of  eminent  minds 
is,  doubtless,  in  a  native  or  early  acquired  degree  and  kind  of 
power  of  attention,  which  none  of  the  motives  of  direct  disci¬ 
pline  can  create.  This  is  true  also  of  the  lower  animals; 
superior  native  or  spontaneously  acquired  powers  of  atten¬ 
tion  being  regarded  by  their  trainers  as  indispensable  to  suc¬ 
cess  in  training  them.  Of  this  contrast  between  genius  or 
native  character  and  ordinary  mental  ability,  genius  itself  is 
not  in  general  made  aware  by  comparison  with  ordinary  stand¬ 
ards,  but  usually  attributes  its  success  to  a  prolonged  and 
patient  concentration  of  an  ordinary  attention,  which  is  merely 
voluntary ;  thus  converting  into  a  merit,  or  a  moral  superior¬ 
ity,  what  are  really  gifts  of  nature.  But  in  this  explanation 
of  itself  neither  genius  nor  character  takes  account  of  the 
motives  or  the  pleasures  of  action  and  effort  which  make 


294 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


patient  labor  and  sacrifice  easier  for  it  than  for  inferior  order* 
of  minds,  for  whom  moral  incitements  and  rewards  are,  there¬ 
fore,  more  needed  ;  and  genius  is  apt  to  take  no  account  of  the 
finer  quality  of  its  powers  of  attention,  which  it  attributes  to 
the  objects  or  the  occasions  to  which  its  efforts  are  “accident¬ 
ally  directed.”  The  pre-eminence  of  genius  and  of  native 
character  is  really  manifested  in  the  equality  of  abilities  to 
exceptionally  difficult  works;  though  it  is  made  indubitably 
evident  and  a  subject  for  fame  and  history  only  in  performance 
which  admits  of  comparison  with  the  results  of  ordinary  abili¬ 
ties. 

Command  of  the  lower  memory  is  doubtless  improved  by 
the  mastery  of  some  one  or  two  subjects ;  the  more  special 
and  narrow  they  are,  the  better,  perhaps,  for  saving  time,  and 
even  if  they  do  not  belong  to  what  is  commonly  accounted 
essential  to  a  liberal  education.  It  should,  however,  be  such 
a  mastery  as  is  conducive  to  the  formation  of  mental  habits, 
and  not  such  as  can  be  compassed  by  -cramming,  or  the  exclu¬ 
sive  study  of  any  subject  for  a  special  purpose  and  in  a  limited 
time.  A  young  officer  of  the  Union  army  in  our  late  struggle, 
in  a  letter  written  on  the  evening  before  the  battle  in  which 
his  life  was  sacrificed,  attributed  his  previous  successes,  and 
rapid  promotion  to  responsible  duties,  to  a  six  months’  study 
of  turtles  at  the  Zoological  Museum  of  Harvard  University, 
which  was  undertaken  merely  from  the  youthful  instinct  of 
mastery,  or  appreciation  of  the  value  of  discipline,  and  was 
interrupted  by  the  breaking  out  of  the  war  and  the  young 
man’s  enlistment  in  the  service.  Perhaps,  however,  the  inde¬ 
pendence  of  character  which  determined  this  choice  of  means 
for  discipline  was  the  real  source  of  the  success  which  the 
youth  too  modestly  attributed  to  the  discipline  itself. 

It  is  all-important  in  considering  the  problems  of  education 
to  have  clearly  before  our  minds  what  are  its  true  ends  and  its 
most  direct  proximate  means.  This  is  far  more  important,  in 
a  philosophical  consideration  of  the  subject,  than  any  amount 
of  evidence  on  the  working  of  a  system  of  subsidiary  means 
supposed  to  be  adapted  to  ends  very  ill  understood.  It  is  a 
far  more  important  question  than  that  to  which  answer  is  made 


THE  CONFLICT  OF  STUDIES. 


295 


in  the  testimony  of  experienced  teachers  and  examiners  as  to 
the  value  of  any  system  of  examinations  for  testing  a  youth’s 
“examination-passing-power.”  This  testimony  may  be  good 
evidence  that  a  university  is  really  doing,  and  doing  faithfully, 
what  it  professes  to  do ;  but  it  is  not  a  proof  that  its  system 
is  the  best,  or  that  its  ideas  of  a  liberal  education  are  soundly 
based  either  in  experience  or  philosophy.  It  is  not  a  proof 
that  philosophy  is  kept  alive  in  such  a  university,  even  to  the 
degree  of  inspiring  a  hope  for  attainment  beyond  the  immedi¬ 
ately  practicable,  or  of  creating  any  desire  for  a  wider  range 
of  influence,  or  for  a  more  comprehensive  knowledge  of  its 
duties. 


$ 


THE  USES  AND  ORIGIN  OF  THE  ARRANGE¬ 
MENTS  OF  LEAVES  IN  PLANTS.* 


In  proposing  to  treat  in  this  paper  of  the  origin  of  some  ol 
the  more  common  arrangements  of  leaves  and  leaf-like  organs 
in  the  higher  orders  of  plants,  I  do  not  intend  to  make  this 
question  the  principal  object  of  discussion,  but  propose  only  to 
consider  it  so  far  as  it  affords  useful  hypotheses  for  the  inter¬ 
pretation  of  some  of  the  obscurer  features  in  the  main  object 
of  this  inquiry;  namely,  questions  of  the  uses  of  these  arrange¬ 
ments,  or  of  their  adaptations  to  the  outward  economy  of  the 
plant’s  life,  and  to  the  conditions  of  its  existence.  If  by  such 
a  discussion  hypothesis  can  be  made  to  throw  light  on  physio¬ 
logical  questions,  while  seeking  more  directly  to  connect  in  a 
continuous  series  the  simpler  and  more  general  with  the  more 
specific  and  complicated  forms  in  vegetable  life,  it  will  gain  for 
itself  a  much  greater  interest  and  value  than  it  would  other¬ 
wise  possess.  It  is,  indeed,  in  this  value  of  the  principle  of 
Natural  Selection,  its  value  and  use  as  a  working  hypothesis, 
that  its  principal  claim  to  respect  consists.  If  any  subsidiary 
hypothesis  under  the  theory  serve  only  as  a  principle  of  con¬ 
nection,  a  thread  on  which  we  may  arrange  and  more  clearly 
regard  relationships  that  are  the  objects  of  a  more  promising 
scientific  inquiry,  it  will  at  least  serve  a  useful  purpose,  and 
even,  perhaps,  give  greater  plausibility  to  the  theory  in  general 
of  the  origin  of  organic  forms  through  the  agency  of  their 
utilities,  or  through  the  advantages  these  have  given  to  surviv¬ 
ing  forms  of  life. 

There  is  hardly  any  animal  or  plant,  especially  of  the  higher 

*From  the  Memoirs  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Communicated 
October  io,  1871. 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


297 

orders,  that  has  not  in  many  of  the  characteristics  of  its  struct¬ 
ure  very  conspicuous  adaptations  to  the  outward  conditions  of 
its  life, — to  “  the  part  it  has  to  play  in  the  world,”  or  at  least  to 
the  many  values  or  advantages  it  has  to  secure.  This  fact  has 
led  many  naturalists,  whose  opinion,  until  lately,  and  for  a  long 
time,  has  prevailed,  to  regard  a  living  structure  as  principally, 
if  not  entirely,  made  up  of  subordinate  parts  or  organs  which 
exi^t  for  specific  purposes,  or  are  essentially  concerned  with 
special  services  to  the  general  life  of  the  organism,  or  even  to 
life  external  to  it,  the  general  life  of  the  world,  or  ultimately 
even  to  the  highest  and  best  life  of  the  world.  This  doctrine 
deprived  of  its  grander  features,  as  the  doctrine  of  Final  Causes 
in  natural  history,  and  limited  simply  to  the  conception  of  the 
parts  and  characters  of  organic  structures  as  all,  or  nearly  all, 
related  essentially  to  the  preservation  and  continuance  of  the 
life  itself  which  they  embody,  or  to  the  principle  of  self-con- 
setvation,  is  the  ground  of  the  importance  claimed  for  the 
principle  of  Natural  Selection  in  the  generation  of  organic 
species.  But  another  school  of  naturalists,  whose  influence  has 
been  steadily  gaining  ground,  has  always  strenuously  opposed 
this  view,  and  questioned  the  validity  of  the  induction  on 
which  it  rests.  Though  it  is  true  that  the  higher  animals  and 
plants  exhibit  a  great  many  special  adaptations  to  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  their  existence,  yet,  it  is  objected,  in  a  far  greater 
number  of  characteristics  they,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the 
organic  world,  exhibit  no  such  adaptations.  In  those  most 
important  features  of  organic  structures,  which  are  now  called 
genetic  characters,  and  were  formerly  called  affinities,  few  or 
no  specific  uses  can  in  general  be  discovered;  and  it  is  consid¬ 
ered  unphilosophical  to  base  an  induction  on  the  comparatively 
few  cases  of  this  class  of  characters  which  have  obvious  utilities 
It  is  thought  unphilosophical  to  presume  on  such  meagre 
grounds  that  all  these  characters  are  either  now,  or  have  been, 
of  service  to  the  life  of  the  organism ;  thus  confounding  these 
genetic  characters  with  those  that  are  properly  called  adaptive. 
By  positing  this  distinction  of  genetic  and  adaptive  characters 
as  a  fundamental  and  absolute  one,  the  theory  of  organic  types 
opposes  itself  to  the  conception  of  utility  as  a  property  of 


298 


PHIL  OSOPHICA L  DISCUSSIONS. 


organic  structures  in  general,  and  conceives,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  an  organism  consists  essentially  of  certain  constituent 
parts  and  characters  which  are  of  no  service  to  its  general  life, 
and  are  ends,  so  far  as  we  can  know,  in  themselves;  though 
other  and  subordinate  ones  may  stand  incidentally  in  this  me¬ 
nial  relation. 

This  contrast  being  a  merely  speculative  difference  of  opin¬ 
ion,  a  reference  to  it,  in  a  scientific  inquiry,  would  be  out  of 
place  were  it  not  that  scientific  inquiries  are  almost  never  free 
from  such  biases.  These  almost  always  exert  an  unperceived 
influence,  unless  specially  guarded  against;  and  in  calling  at¬ 
tention  here  to  this  question  in  biological  philosophy,  it  is  only 
for  the  purpose  of  characterizing  it  as  a  strictly  open  question. 
As  is  so  often  the  case  in  such  debates,  both  sides  are  right  and 
both  wrong;  right,  so  far  as  each  refuses  credence  to  the  other’s 
main  and  exclusive  position,  and  wrong,  so  far  as  each  claims 
it  for  its  own.  In  other  words,  they  are  not  properly  inductive 
theories,  awaiting  and  subject  to  verification,  but  arrogant  dog¬ 
mas,  demanding  unconditional  assent.  The  bearing  of  this 
debate  on  the  proper  questions  of  science  relates  only  to  method, , 
or  to  what  are  the  directions  in  which  scientific  pursuit  and 
hypothesis  are  legitimate.  It  is  oftener  by  diverting  or  mis¬ 
directing  scientific  pursuit  than  in  any  other  way  that  such 
speculative  opinions  are  of  serious  importance;  and  in  this 
way  they  are  purely  mischievous.  The  theory  of  types  is  un¬ 
doubtedly  right  in  refusing  assent  to  the  doctrine,  as  an  estab¬ 
lished  induction,  that  every  part,  arrangement,  or  function  of 
an  organism  is  of  some  special,  though  it  may  be  unrecognized, 
service  to  its  life;  but  it  is  wrong  in  assuming,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  all  attempts  at  discovering  uses  which  are  not  pres¬ 
ent  or  obvious  must  be  futile ;  or,  in  assuming  that  there  are 
characteristic  features  in  all  organisms,  which  are  not  only  at 
present  of  no  use,  but  never  could  have  been  grounds  of 
advantage.  Again,  the  theory  of  the  essential  reference  of 
every  feature  of  an  organism  to  the  conditions  of  its  existence 
is  undoubtedly  right  in  refusing  assent  to  this  assumption  of 
essentially  useless  forms,  and  in  affirming  the  legitimacy  of 
inquiries  concerning  the  utility  of  any  feature  whatever  to  the 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


299 

life  of  an  organism,  however  far  removed  in  appearance  from 
any  relations  to  its  present  conditions  of  existence.  It  is 
wrong,  on  the  other  hand,  in  confounding  the  legitimacy  of 
this  pursuit  with  the  dogma  in  which,  as  a  theory,  it  essentially 
consists,  or  in  assuming  as  an  established  induction  what  is 
only  a  legitimate  question  or  line  of  inquiry. 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  a  proper  scientific  judgment  of 
these  theories  cannot  be  absolutely  impartial,  since  one  of  them 
is  opposed  to  scientific  pursuit,  and  the  other  invites  it.  The 
theory  of  types,  assuming  that  utility  is  only  a  superficial  or  in¬ 
cidental  character,  and  not  a  property  of  organic  forms  and 
functions  generally,  occupies  a  negative  and  forbidding  attitude 
towards  what  are  really  legitimate  questions  of  science;  and, 
from  this  point  of  view,  judgment  must  be  made  in  favor  of  the 
rival  dogma.  We  ought  to  be  on  our  guard,  moreover,  against 
this  theory,  since  there  is  a  strong  natural,  but  erroneous  and 
mischievous,  tendency  in  the  mind  to  fall  back  upon  it  from  the 
difficulties  of  a  baffled  pursuit;  and  to  regard  as  really  ultimate 
those  facts  of  which  the  causes  and  dependences  elude  our 
researches.  This  resort  can  never  be  justified  so  long  as  there 
remain  any  suggestions  of  explanation  not  altogether  frivolous, 
or  incapable  of  some  degree  of  verification.  We  may  safely 
maintain  that  this  tendency  to  rest  from  the  difficulties  of 
scientific  pursuit  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  prevalence  at  the 
present  time  of  the  doctrine,  which,  when  first  propounded, 
was  regarded  as  heterodox  and  dangerous,  especially  as  it  then 
seemed  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  Final  Causes.  This  appar¬ 
ent  opposition  has  since,  however,  been  made  to  disappear  by 
a  modification  of  the  latter  doctrine,  which  has  incorporated 
in  it  this  theory  of  types,  by  representing  a  type"  of  structure 
as  an  ultimate  feature  in  the  general  plan  of  creation,  or  as  an 
end  for  which  the  successive  manifestations  and  the  adapta¬ 
tions  of  life  exist,  or  to  which  they  tend.  According  to  this 
doctrine,  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  the  maintenance  and  contin¬ 
uance  of  the  mere  life,  such  as  it  is,  or  such  as  it  can  be,  under 
the  conditions  of  its  existence,  that  adaptations  exist  in  organ¬ 
isms  ;  but  it  is  for  the  sake  of  realizing  in  it  certain  predeter¬ 
mined  special  types  of  structure,  which  are  ends  in  themselves, 


3°° 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


and  to  which  the  adaptive  characters  of  the  structure  are 
subservient.  Thus  an  elaborate  and  formidable  philosophical 
theory  has  grown  up,  which  stands  in  direct  and  forbidding 
opposition  to  such  inquiries  as  the  one  proposed  in  this  discus¬ 
sion. 

If  the  theory  were  true,  it  would,  indeed,  be  idle  to  ask 
what  are  the  uses,  and  how  could  these  have  determined  the 
origin  of  those  special  leaf  arrangements  in  the  higher  plants, 
which  have  been  observed  by  botanists,  and  discussed  by 
mathematicians  in  the  theory  of  Phyllotaxy.  There  is  a  suffi¬ 
ciently  obvious  utility  in  the  general  character  of  these 
arrangements  with  reference  to  the  general  external  economy 
of  vegetable  life  and  the  functions  of  leaf-like  bodies ;  but  this 
does  not  at  first  sight  appear  to  regard  the  particular  details,  or 
the  special  laws  of  arrangement,  with  which  the  theory  of 
Phyllotaxy  is  concerned.  In  these  we  have  apparently  reached 
ultimate  features  of  structure,  the  origin  or  value  of  which  in 
the  plant’s  life  it  would,  on  the  theory  of  types,  be  idle  to  seek. 
These  are  such  excellent  examples  of  what  the  theory  of  types 
supposes  to  be  finalities  in  biological  science,  that  botanists  and 
mathematicians,  with  hardly  an  exception,  have  consented  to 
regard  them  in  this  light.  There  is  a  difference  of  opinion,  it  is  _ 
true,  as  to  whether  the  several  angular  intervals  between  succes¬ 
sive  leaves  around  the  stem,  or  the  several  angles  of  divergence 
between  successive  leaves  in  the  spiral  arrangements,  ought  to 
be  regarded  as  modifications  of  a  single  typical  angle  to  which 
they  approximate  ,  in  value,  or  as  several  distinct  types.  There 
is  no  difference  of  opinion,  however,  in  regard  to  another  dis¬ 
tinction  of  types  in  leaf  arrangements,  which,  to  all  appearance, 
are  separated  by  entirely  distinct  characters;  namely,  the 
so-called  spiral  arrangements  and  those  of  the  verticil  or  whorl. 
It  is  with  the  former  chiefly  that  the  mathematical  theory 
of  Phyllotaxy  is  concerned.  The  latter,  or  the  verticil  arrange¬ 
ments,  though  presenting  a  great  variety  of  forms,  are  so 
obviously  all  of  the  same  general  and  simple  type,  that  they 
present  no  difficulties  or  problems  for  the  exercise  of  mathe¬ 
matical  skill.  Their  varieties  consist  simply  in  the  number,  of 
leaves  in  the  whorl.  From  two  leaves  placed  oppositely,  these 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


301 


whorls  vary  through  all  numbers  to  very  large  ones,  and  in  all 
these  varieties  the  simple  law  holds  that  the  leaves  of  succes¬ 
sive  whorls,  being  of  the  same  number  and  placed  in  each 
whorl  at  equal  distances  around  the  stem,  like  the  spokes  of  a 
wheel,  are  so  disposed  that  the  leaves  of  the  upper  whorl  stand 
directly  over  the  angular  spaces  between  those  of  the  lower 
one.  These  features  of  arrangement  are  so  obviously  the  same 
adaptations  as  those  we  shall  find  in  the  more  complicated 
spiral  arrangements,  that  I  will  consider  them  both  together. 
They  appear  to  be  two  solutions  of  the  same  problem  in  the 
economy  of  the  higher  vegetable  life;  though  it  is  probable 
that  the  whorl  arrangement  is  the  inferior  one.  It  approaches 
in  simplicity  most  nearly  to  the  alternate  system  among  the 
spiral  forms,  though  it  is  perfectly  distinct  from  this.  An 
opposition  of  leaves  in  the  whorl  is  an  accident  or  trivial 
circumstance  dependent  on  the  fact  that  the  number  of  leaves 
in  the  whorl  is  in  many  cases  an  even  one;  while  in  the  alter¬ 
nate  arrangement  this  opposition  is  an  essential  character. 
This  would  not  be  strictly  the  case,  indeed,  if  the  theory  were 
true  that  the  alternate  as  well  as  the  other  spiral  arrangements 
are  only  modifications  of  a  single  typical  one.  But  an  exami¬ 
nation  of  the  evidence  will  show  very  slight  grounds  for  this 
opinion.  No  doubt,  in  the  doctrine  of  development,  all  these 
arrangements  must  be  considered  as  modifications  of  some 
single  ancient  form,  though  this,  it  is  quite  likely,  was  very 
different  from  the  typical  arrangement,  or  the  perfect  form,  in 
the  theory  of  Phyllotaxy.  The  important  point,  however,  to 
be  considered  here,  is,  that  on  the  theory  of  development  there 
is  properly  no  genetic  connection  between  the  opposition  of 
leaves  in  whorls  and  those  of  the  alternate  arrangement.  And, 
indeed,  in  the  three-leaved  systems  of  the  two  types  the  con¬ 
trast  is  very  marked;  for  the  three  leaves  of  such  a  whorl 
stand  over  the  angular  spaces  between  the  three  of  the  whorl 
below  it,  as  in  other  arrangements  of  this  type;  while  the 
three  leaves  of  the  spiral  system  or  cycle  stand  severally 
directly  over  the  three  below  them.  The  genetic  relationships 
of  the  two  great  types  will  be  specially  considered  when  we 
come  to  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  both  from  simpler  vege¬ 
table  forms. 


3°2 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


The  names  “system”  and  “cycle”  are  not  so  properly  ap¬ 
plicable  to  groups  of  leaves  in  the  spiral  arrangements  as  to 
those  of  whorls,  and  refer  rather  to  abstract  numbers,  counted 
from  any  point  we  please,  than  to  actually  definite  groups. 
The  actual  system,  cycle,  or  group  in  these  arrangements  is  of 
indefinite  extent,  or  comprises  the  whole  stem,  so  far  as  it  is 
developed,  and  even  extends  into  the  undeveloped  leaves  of 
the  terminal  bud.  In  speaking  of  a  cycle  of  leaves  in  these 
arrangements  no  definitely  situated  group  is  meant,  but  only  a 
definite  number  counted  from  any  one  we  may  choose  for  an 
origin.  In  almost  all  arrangements  of  this  type  we  find  that, 
after  thus  counting  some  definite  number  of  leaves  from  some 
one  assumed  as  the  first,  we  arrive  next  at  a  leaf  which  stands 
directly  over  the  first.  Such  a  group,  so  determined,  makes 
what  is  called  a  cycle;  or,  as  we  may  sometimes  prefer  to  call 
it,  a  system.  Within  it  leaves  succeed  each  other  at  suc¬ 
cessively  greater  and  greater  heights,  and  are  so  placed  around 
the  stem  that  the  same  angular  interval  or  angle  of  divergence 
is  contained  between  any  two  successive  ones.  This  angle  of 
divergence  is  commensurate  with  the  circumference,  but  is  not 
always  an  aliquot  part  of  it,  as  in  the  angular  interval  of  the 
leaves  of  whorls.  It  is  in  many  plants  some  multiple  of  an 
aliquot  part,  and  in  counting  the  leaves  successively  through 
the  cycle,  we  have  to  turn  several  times  around  the  stem. 
This  number  of  revolutions,  divided  by  the  number  of  leaves 
in  the  cycle,  is  the  ratio  of  the  angle  of  divergence  to  the 
whole  circumference;  and  the  fraction  expressing  this  ratio  is 
used  to  denote  the  particular  arrangement  of  such  a  system. 
Thus  the  fraction  J-  denotes  the  alternate  arrangement,  in 
which  there  are  two  leaves  in  one  turn,  the  third  leaf  falling 
over  the  first.  J  is  the  name  of  the  three-leaved  system,  in 
which  there  are  three  leaves  in  one  turn,  the  fourth  falling  over 
the  first.  is  the  name  of  the  system  in  which  five  leaves 
occur  in  two  turns  and  the  sixth  falls  over  the  first.  In  order 
that  such  definite  numerical  systems,  or  cycles,  should  exist  in 
the  leaves  of  any  plant,  it  is  only  necessary  that  the  ratio  of 
the  angle  of  divergence  to  the  circumference  should  be  some 
proper  fraction,  and  this  fraction  would  be  in  the  same  way 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


3°3 


the  name  of  the  system.  But  any  proper  fraction  whatever 
would  have  the  property  I  have  pointed  out;  namely,  that 
after  the  number  of  leaves  denoted  by  its  denominator,  and 
the  number  of  turns  denoted  by  its  numerator,  the  next  suc¬ 
ceeding  leaf  would  fall  over  the  first.  Whatever  may  be  the 
purpose  or  advantage  of  the  spiral  arrangement,  and  of  this 
feature  in  it,  it  is  obvious  that  some  other  purpose  is  sought,  o? 
some  other  advantage  gained,  by  the  actual  arrangements  of 
this  sort  in  nature;  or  else  it  would  appear  on  the  theory  of 
types,  that  the  typical  properties  of  them  are  not  fully  deter¬ 
mined  by  what  we  have  yet  observed  respecting  them.  For, 
although  there  is  a  great  variety  of  such  arrangements,  these 
do  not  include  all  the  possible  ones,  nor  even  all  the  simplest. 
There  must  still  be  another  principle  of  choice  besides  what 
determines  the  rational  fraction  and  the  spiral  arrangement. 
What  this  is,  is  the  problem  of  the  mathematical  theory  of 
Phyllotaxy.  The  result  of  this  investigation  was  a  classifica¬ 
tion  of  all  the  fractions  that  occur  in  natural  arrangements 
under  the  general  form  of  the  continued  fraction 

i 

a  - 1-  i 

7  +  i 

I  +  &c., 

in  which  a  may  have  the  values,  i,  2,  3,  or  4.  The  successive 
approximations  of  these  four  continued  fractions  give  four 
series  of  proper  fractions,  which  include  all  the  arrangements 
that  occur  in  nature.  These  series  are  for 


n  —  t  JL  2.  3l  Sl  -9  .  Rrn 

u  —  1 . 2’3’5’8’13’ 

n  —  <y  1111  _5_  Rrn 

u  z . 3>  5>  8>  13» 

a  ~  3 . b  "7  >  A’  A’  &c- 

a  =  4 . h  b  b  <^c- 


The  first  series  is  not  usually  given,  since  they  are  the  com¬ 
plements  of  the  fractions  of  the  second  series,  and  express  the 
same  arrangements,  but  in  an  opposite  direction  around  the 
circumference;  or  by  supposing  that  the  spiral  line  connecting 
the  leaves  is  drawn  from  leaf  to  leaf  the  longer  way  round. 
Omitting  then  the  first  series,  we  shall  still  have  in  the  others, 
as  they  stand,  developed  to  five  terms,  many  more  fractions 


3°4 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


than  have  actually  been  observed,  or  could  be  observed  in 
actual  plants. 

I  propose  in  what  follows  to  subject  the  mathematical  in¬ 
duction  expressed  by  these  series  to  careful  critical  exam¬ 
ination,  to  distinguish  what  is  matter  of  actual  observation 
from  what  is  deduced  from  theory,  and  to  ascertain  with  pre¬ 
cision  the  amount  of  inductive  evidence  on  which  the  theory 
of  the  typical  angle  rests.  Pursuing  the  subject  afterwards  by 
a  strictly  inductive  investigation,  I  shall  estimate  what  there  is 
of  truth  in  the  theory.  This  will  lead,  I  think,  to  the  rejection 
of  the  theory  as  it  stands,  or  under  the  form  of  the  typical 
angle,  but  will  not  render  the  observation  on  which  it  depends 
wholly  nugatory.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  show  that  this  ob¬ 
servation  really  leads  to  the  true  explanation  of  the  occurrence 
of  only  certain  fractions  in  the  spiral  arrangements,  and  the 
more  frequent  occurrence  of  some  of  them  than  of  others.  It  is 
a  well-known  property  of  the  fractions  of  these  series,  that 
after  the  first  two  in  each,  the  others  can  be  deduced  from  the 
preceding  ones,  and  continued  indefinitely,  by  a  very  simple 
process.  The  numerator  of  each  after  the  first  two  is  equal  to 
the  sum  of  the  numerators  of  the  two  preceding,  and  its  de¬ 
nominator  to  the  sum  of  their  denominators.  This  law,,  as  a 
matter  of  observation,  was  actually  discovered  only  in  the  first 
four  fractions  of  the  first  or  second  series,  which  are  by  far  the 
commonest  of  actually  observed  arrangements  in  nature. 
Other  less  frequently  occurring  fractions  were  arranged  on  the 
same  principle,  and  extended  so  as  to  give  the  last  two  series. 
The  four  series,  or  the  three  lower  ones,  contain,  therefore, 
more  than  all  the  fractions  that  are  known  to  belong  to  natural 
arrangements.  This  will  be  sufficiently  evident  when  we  ob 
serve  that  the  fractions  f  and  in  the  first  series,  or  theix 
complements,  f  and  ^3,  in  the  second  series,  would  be  indis¬ 
tinguishable  in  actual  measurement;  since  they  differ  from  each 
other- by  or  by  less  than  a  hundredth,  which  is  much  less 
than  can  be  observed,  or  than  stems  are  often  twisted  by  irreg¬ 
ular  growth.  For  the  same  reason  we  must  reject  all  but  the 
first  three  terms  of  the  third  and  fourth  series  as  being  distin¬ 
guishable  only  in  theory.  We  are  thus  left  with  a  very  slight 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


3°5 


basis  of  facts  on  which  to  erect  the  superstructure  of  theory. 
We  shall  see  further  on  a  still  more  cogent  reason  for  calling  in 
question  the  validity  of  this  induction;  namely,  that  limiting 
the  evidence  as  we  are  thus  obliged  to  do,  we  have  still  left  so 
large  a  number  of  actually  observed  arrangements,  that  they 
include  almost  all  that  are  possible  among  equally  simple  and 
distinguishable  fractions  within  the  observed  limits  of  natural 
arrangements;  all,  in  fact,  but  two;  namely,  the  fractions  ^ 
and  The  range  is  not  a  narrow  one,  but  extends  from  ^  to 
•§-,  or  from  -J-  to  J-,  since  the  fractions  above  J  are  complements 
of  those  below,  and  express  the  same  arrangements,  but  in  an 
opposite  direction  around  the  circumference.  The  problem  of 
Phyllotaxy,  therefore,  seems  at  first  sight  to  be  reduced  to 
this;  not  why  the  other  fractions  do  occur  in  nature,  but  why 
these  two  do  not?  But  to  answer  the  latter  question  is  really 
also  to  answer  the  former,  though  it  will  go  but  very  little  way 
towards  justifying  the  theory  of  the  typical  or  unique  angle. 
It  will  go  much  further  if  we  exclude  from  this  list  of  fractions 
those  which  are  of  very  infrequent  occurrence,  namely,  those 
peculiar  to  the  third  and  fourth  series;  or,  in  other  words,  take 
account  of  the  relative  frequency  in  nature  of  the  several 
arrangements.  This,  indeed,  entirely  changes  the  aspects  of 
the  question,  for  we  find  that,  instead  of  two,  there  are  six  frac¬ 
tions  of  the  simpler  denominations  (or  within  the  limits  of 
distinguishable  values),  which  either  do  not  occur  in  nature  at 
all,  or  occur  very  rarely;  while  those  that  are  common  are  four 
in  number,  or  less  than  half  of  all.  But  we  shall  find  that 
those  of  the  six  which  occur  rarely  differ  from  the  two  really 
unique  ones  among  them,  and  agree  with  the  common  ones  in 
respect  to  the  law  on  which  the  answer  to  our  question  really 
depends.  This  answer  will  be  found  to  depend  on  the  law 
which  was  observed  in  the  first  four  fractions  of  the  first  or 
second  series,  and  was  extended  in  the  continuation  of  these 
and  the  formation  of  the  others.  This  law,  or  the  dependence 
of  these  fractions  on  each  other,  was  seen  to  be  a  simple  case 
of  the  relations  of  dependence  in  the  successive  approxima¬ 
tions  of  continued  fractions,  and  thus  led  to  the  induction  of 
these  fractions;  namely,  the  continued  fraction 


3  °6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


i 

7  +  _i 
1  + 1_ 

i  -f-  &c.  f°r  the  first  series,  or  i 

2  -f  1 

1  +_L 

i  +  &c. 

for  the  second.  The  ultimate  values  of  these  continued  frac¬ 
tions  extended  infinitely  are  complements  of  each  other,  as 
their  successive  approximations  are,  and  are  in  effect  the  same 
fraction;  namely,  the  irrational  or  incommensurate  interval 
which  is  supposed  to  be  the  perfect  form  of  the  spiral  arrange¬ 
ment.  This  does,  in  fact,  possess  in  a  higher  degree  than  any 
rational  fraction  the  property  common  to  those  which  have  been 
observed  in  nature;  though  practically,  or  so  far  as  observation 
can  go,  this  higher  degree  is  a  mere  refinement  of  theory. 
For,  as  we  shall  find,  the  typical  irrational  interval  differs  from 
that  of  the  fraction  -|  (and  its  complement  differs  from  -|)  by 
almost  exactly  f07Q0-,  a  quantity  much  less  than  can  be  observed 
in  the  actual  angles  of  leaf-arrangements.  The  conception  of 
such  a  typical  angle  as  an  actual  value  in  nature,  and  as  a 
point  of  departure  for  more  specialized  ones,  existing  either 
among  the  normal  patterns,  or  formative  principles  of  vegeta¬ 
ble  life,  as  the  theory  of  types  supposes,  or  in  some  unknown 
law  of  development  or  physiological  necessity, — such  a  con¬ 
ception  is  a  very  attractive  one.  And  as  exhibiting  in  the 
abstract  and  in  its  most  perfect  form  a  property  peculiar,  as  we 
shall  see,  to  natural  arrangements,  but  belonging  to  them  in 
inferior  and  in  various  degrees, — as  exhibiting  this  separated 
from  the  property  which  such  arrangements  also  have,  by 
which  they  are  divisible  into  limited  systems  or  cycles, — from 
this  point  of  view  the  conception  acquires  a  valid  scientific 
utility.  But  we  should  be  on  our  guard  against  a  misconstruc¬ 
tion  of  it.  There  is  no  evidence  whatever,  and  there  could  be 
none  from  observation,  that  any  such  separation  of  properties 
actually  occurs  in  nature,  or  that  one  is  superposed  on  the 
other  in  successive  stages  of  development  in  the  bud,  or  that 
this  typical  arrangement  is  first  produced  and  subsequent!) 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


307 


modified  into  the  more  special  ones. — into  the  limited  systems 
or  cycles  represented  by  simple  rational  fractions.  To  suppose 
this  is  to  confound  abstractions  with  concrete  existences,  and 
would  be  an  instance  of  the  so-called  “  realism  ”  in  science, 
against  which  it  is  always  so  necessary  to  be  on  our  guard. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  one  rather  than  the  other 
of  these  properties  appears  first  in  the  incipient  parts  of  the 
bud,  or  that  either  exists  in  any  degree  of  perfection  before  the 
development  of  these  parts  has  made  considerable  advance. 

[The  memoir  proceeds  to  show  by  “a  strictly  inductive  investigation,” 
and  to  exemplify  graphically  by  a  large  diagram,  ‘ 4  what  this  property  is 
which  the  typical  or  unique  angle  has  in  the  abstract  and  in  perfection,  and 
to  show  what  its  utility  is  in  the  economy  of  vegetable  life.”  The  details 
are  too  technical  and  the  investigation  too  mathematical  to  be  reproduced 
here.  It  explains  how  this  spiral  arrangement] 
would  effect  the  most  thorough  and  rapid  distribution  of  the 
leaves  around  the  stem,  each  new  or  higher  leaf  falling  over  the 
angular  space  between  the  two  older  ones  which  are  nearest  in 
direction  so  as  to  subdivide  it  in  the  same  ratio,  k ,  in  which  the 
first  two,  or  any  two  successive  ones,  divide  the  circumference. 
But  according  to  such  an  arrangement  there  could  be  no  limited 
systems  or  cycles,  or  no  leaf  would  ever  fall  exactly  over  any 
other;  and,  as  I  have  said,  we  have  no  evidence,  and  could  have 
none,  that  this  arrangement  actually  exists  in  nature.  To  realize 
simply  and  purely  the  property  of  the  most  thorough  distribu¬ 
tion,  the  most  complete  exposure  of  the  leaves  to  light  and  air 
around  the  stem,  and  the  most  ample  elbow-room  or  space  for 
expansion  in  the  bud,  is  to  realize  a  property  that  exists  sepa¬ 
rately  only  in  abstraction,  like  a  line  without  breadth.  Never¬ 
theless  practically,  and  so  far  as  observation  can  go,  we  find 
that  the  last  two  fractions,  ■§•  and  -^3,  and  all  further  ones  of 
the  first  series,  like  ^-f-,  etc.,  which  are  all  indistinguishable  as 
measured  values  in  the  plant,  do  actually  realize  this  property 
with  all  needful  accuracy.  Thus  |-=o. 625 ;  ^3=0.615;  and 
1^=0.619;  and  differ  from  k  by  0.007,  °-ooij  0.003,  respect¬ 
ively;  or  they  all  differ  by  inappreciable  values  from  the 
quantity  which  might  therefore  be  made  to  stand  for  all  of 
them.  But  in  putting  k  for  all  the  values  of  the  first  series 
after  the  first  three,  it  should  be  with  the  understanding  that  it 


3°8 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


is  not  so  employed  in  its  capacity  as  the  grand  type,  or  the 
source  of  the  distributive  character  which  they  have;  in  its 
capacity  as  an  irrational  fraction, — but  simply  as  being  indis¬ 
tinguishable  practically  from  these  rational  ones,  and  as  being 
entirely  consistent  practically  with  the  property  that  rational 
proper  fractions  also  have  of  forming  limited  systems  or  cycles. 
Much  mystification  has  come  from  the  irrational  character  of 
this  fraction ;  scepticism  on  the  part  of  non-mathematical 
botanists,  and  mysticism  on  the  part  of  mathematicians.  The 
simpler  or  the  first  three  fractions  of  this  series  have  also  in  a 
less  degree  the  same  distributive  quality,  and  so  in  a  still  less 
degree  have  the  fractions  of  the  two  lower  series.  But  all  the 
fractions  left  among  possible  ones,  within  the  limits  considered, 
that  are  sufficiently  simple  to  be  readily  identified,  are  the 
fractions  j  and  or  their  complements  and  -J;  and  these 
exceptions,  as  I  have  said,  are  all  the  grounds  of  fact  which  at 
first  sight  give  any  plausibility  to  the  theory  of  Phyllotaxy,  or 
make  its  laws  anything  other  apparently  than  the  necessary 
consequences  of  purely  numerical  properties  in  the  simpler 
fractions.  Yet  beside  the  fact  that  these  two  have  not  the  dis¬ 
tributive  character  of  the  others,  the  fact  should  be  taken 
account  of,  that  by  confining  ourselves  to  the  limits  ^  to  ^  we 
have  neglected  several  other  simple  fractions,  that  are  even 
worse  adapted  for  the  purpose  which  the  great  majority  appear 
to  serve.  These  fractions  are  -J-,  and  -§-,  or  their  comple¬ 
ments.  Moreover,  we  should  consider  that  as  the  fractions 
peculiar  to  the  two  lower  series  are  much  less  fitted  for  this 
purpose  than  those  of  the  first  series,  so  they  are  much  less 
frequently  found  in  nature. 

Taking  account  of  all  these  facts,  we  find  the  hypothesis  that 
nature  has  chosen  certain  intervals  in  the  spiral  arrangements 
of  leaves,  and  for  the  purpose  I  have  indicated,  to  be  sufficiently 
probable  to  justify  a  mor ;  careful  consideration  of  it.  Wide, 
divergences  from  the  most  perfect  realization  of  this  purpose, 
such  as  we  have  among  the  more  frequent  forms  in  the  fractions 
^  and  |-,  or  in  the  alternate  and  three-leaved  systems,  and  also 
among  the  less  frequent  forms,  indicate  the  existence  of  other 
conditions  or  purposes  in  these  arrangements,  which  I  propose 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


3°9 


to  consider  further  on.  I  may  remark  here,  however,  that  these 
two  classes  of  exceptions  form  the  most  perfect  realization  of 
the  distributive  property,  namely,  those  of  the  first  series  which 
belong  to  the  most  advanced  forms  of  life,  and  those  peculiar 
to  the  two  other  series,  are  probably  due  to  widely  different 
causes;  the  one  having,  in  fact,  a  high  degree  of  specialization, 
and  the  other  falling  short  in  respect  to  this  distributive  prop¬ 
erty  on  account  of  a  low  degree  of  specialization.  This  view, 
which  is  one  of  the  consequences  of  theoretical  considerations 
on  the  origin  of  these  arrangements,  that  will  be  presented 
when  we  come  to  consider  the  origin  of  spiral  arrangements  in 
general,  and  of  the  whorl,  is  significantly  in  accordance  with 
the  observation  that  the  forms  peculiar  to  the  two  lower  series 
are  more  frequent  among  fossil  plants  than  among  surviving 
ones. 

[After  an  examination  “quite  independently  of  theory,  of  the  properties 
in  the  spiral  arrangements  of  all  the  fractions  between  arid  or  rather 
between  ^  and  and  of  a  less  denomination  than  iqths,”  the  author  pro¬ 
ceeds.] 

All  the  fractions  of  the  actual  arrangements  of  nature,  as  well  as 
the  less  simple  theoretical  ones  of  Phyllotaxy,  have  the  property, 
that  after  the  first  turn  of  the  cycle,  and  also  in  this  first  turn 
for  all  the  fractions  of  the  first  series,  or  for  those  most  com¬ 
monly  occurring  in  nature,  each  leaf  of  the  cycle  is  so  placed 
over  the  space  between  older  leaves  nearest  in  direction  to  it  as 
always  to  fall  near  the  middle ,  and  never  beyond  the  middle  third 
of  the  space,  or  by  more  than  one  sixth  of  the  space  from  the 
middle,  until  the  cycle  is  completed,  when  the  new  leaf  is  placed 
exactly  over  an  older  one.  This  property  depends  mathemat¬ 
ically  on  the  character  of  the  continued  fractions,  of  which 
these  fractions  are  the  approximations,  according  to  the  theory 
of  Phyllotaxy. 

#  #  *  #  *  *  # 

The  last  denominators  in  these  continued  fractions  represent 
the  ratios  of  the  contiguous  intervals  introduced  in  the  second 
or  third  turns  by  the  third  or  fourth  leaves.  Only  the  first 
two  fractions  in  each  of  these  series  conform  to  the  above 
law.  The  others,  like  4  and  -f,  violate  the  law  early  in  the 


3IQ 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


cycle;  and  this  explains  the  absence  of  them  from  natural 
arrangements  of  the  spiral  type.  The  property  common  to 
the  latter  resembles  what  we  have  observed  in  the  arrange¬ 
ments  of  whorls,  namely,  that  the  leaves  of  successive  whorls 
are  so  placed  that  those  of  the  upper  one  fall  over  the 
middle  positions  of  the  spaces  between  those  of  the  lower 
one;  'but  those  of  the  next  one  above,  or  in  the  third  whorl, 
are  thus  made  to  fall  directly  over  the  leaves  of  the  first.  Two 
whorls  thus  constitute  a  cycle,  in  the  sense  in  which  this  name 
is  applied  to  the  spiral  arrangements;  and  in  respect  to  their 
distributive  and  cyclic  characters,  whorls  are  thus  most  closely 
related  to  the  J,  or  alternate  system.  But  there  is,  as  I  have 
said,  no  fundamental  or  genetic  relationship  between  them  and 
this  particular  form  of  the  spiral  arrangement.  The  relation¬ 
ship  is  rather  an  adaptive  or  analogical  one.  They  are,  so  to 
speak,  two  distinct  solutions  of  the  same  problem,  two  modes 
of  realizing  the  same  utilities,  or  securing  the  same  advan¬ 
tages;  like  the  wings  of  birds  and  bats. 

One  of  these  utilities  we  have  now  sufficiently  considered, 
namely,  that  which  the  theoretical  angle  k  would  realize  most 
perfectly;  by  which  the  leaves  would  be  distributed  most 
thoroughly  and  rapidly  around  the  stem,  exposed  most  com¬ 
pletely  to  light  and  air,  and  provided  with  the  greatest  freedom 
for  symmetrical  expansion,  together  with'  a  compact  arrange¬ 
ment  in  the  bud.  Neither  this  property,  nor  an  exact  cyclical 
arrangement,  ought,  as  I  have  said,  to  be  found,  or  expected, 
in  the  incipient  parts  at  the  centre  of  the  bud,  any  more  than 
the  perfect  proportions  and  adaptations  of  the  mature  animal 
could  be  expected,  or  are  found,  in  the  embryo.  Both  are 
fully  determined,  no  doubt,  in  the  vital  forces  of  the  individu¬ 
al’s  growth.  Our  question  is,  what  has  determined  such  an 
action  in  these  vital  forces  ?  “  Their  very  nature,  or  an  ulti¬ 

mate  creative  power,”  is  the  answer  which  the  theory  of  types 
gives  to  this  question.  “The  necessities  of  their  lives,  both 
outward  and  inward,  or  the  conditions  past  and  present  of  their 
existence,”  is  the  answer  of  the  theory  of  adaptation.  Science 
ought  to  be  entirely  neutral  between  these  theories,  and  ready 
to  receive  any  confirmation  of  either  of  them  which  can  be 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


311 

adduced;  though,  from  this  point  of  view,  the  theory  of  adap¬ 
tation  has  a  decided  advantage;  since  the  theory  of  types  can 
have  no  confirmation  from  observation  except  of  a  negative 
sort,  the  failure  of  its  rival  to  show  conclusive  proofs.  But  we 
have  seen  that  whatever  can  be  said  in  favor  of  the  view,  that 
there  is  a  unity  of  type  in  the  intervals  of  spiral  arrangements, 
is  directly  convertible  to  the  advantage  of  the  theory  of  adap¬ 
tation;  since  this  unity  consists  in  the  distributive  property 
common  to*  those  arrangements.*  Natural  Selection,  however, 
or  the  indirect  agency  of  utility  in  producing  adaptations,  can¬ 
not,  so  far  as  we  have  yet  seen,  be  appealed  to  for  the  expla¬ 
nation  of  the  spiral  arrangements  in  general;  nor  for  the 
explanation  of  the  verticil  arrangements;  though  the  character 
in  the  latter,  in  which  they  resemble  the  alternate  system,  may 
come  within  the  range  of  this  explanation  through  the  utility 
I  have  pointed  out.  The  only  ground  for  the  action  of 
Natural  Selection  which  I  have  yet  shown  is  in  the  choice 
there  is  among  possible  spiral  arrangements  with  reference  to 
this  utility;  and  it  appears  that  the  principle  is  fully  competent 
to  account  for  the  relative  frequency  of  these,  and  the  entire 
absence  of  some  of  them  from  the  actual  forms  of  nature. 

We  now  come  to  the  special  study  of  two  other  features 
which  have  appeared  in  these  arrangements,  namely,  the  spiral 
character  itself  and  the  simplicity  of  their  cycles.  The  cyclic 
character  is  entirely  wanting  in  the  ideal  arrangement  of  the 

*  There  is  a  remarkable  analogy  between  this  relation  and  that  of  the  two  theories  of 
the  structure  of  the  honey-cell.  The  work  of  the  bees  suggests  to  the  geometrician  a 
perfectly  definite  and  regular  form,  which  he  finds  to  be  the  most  economical  form  of 
compartments  into  which  space  can  be  divided ;  or  he  finds  that  the  honeycomb  would 
be  the  lightest,  or  be  composed  of  the  least  material  for  the  same  capacity  and  number 
of  compartments,  if  partitioned  into  such  figures  as  the  typical  cell.  From  the  defini¬ 
tion  of  this  figure  he  is  able  to  compute  its  angles  and  proportions  with  a  degree  of  pre¬ 
cision  to  which  the  bees’  work  only  roughly  approximates  at  its  best,  and  from  which  it 
often  deviates  widely.  The  theory  of  types  regards  this  ideal  figure  as  a  determining 
cause  of  the  structure,  or  as  ihe  pattern  which  guides  the  bees’  instinct  towards  an  ideally 
perfect  economy.  But  a  plainer  order  of  economy,  a  simple  housewifely  one,  saving  at 
every  turn,  together  with  the  conveniences  and  utilities  which  govern  the  work  of  social 
nest-building  insects  in  general,  would  result,  if  carried  out  to  perfection,  in  the  very 
same  form.  Hence  the  theory  of  adaptation  regards  the  honey-cells  as  modifications  of 
similar  but  rougher  structures  of  the  same  sort,  determined  by  the  further  utility  of 
simple  saving  in  working  with  a  costly  material;  and  whatever  evidence  there  is  that  the 
bees’  instinct  is  determined  toward  the  ideally  perfect  type  of  the  honey-cell  is  directly 
convertible  into  proofs  that  it  is  so  determined  by  these  simple  conveniences  and  utilities 


312 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


interval  k ;  but,  as  I  have  said,  this  interval  cannot  be  proved 
to  exist  in  nature;  for  even  if  it  did,  it  would  be  indistinguish¬ 
able  even  from  the  simple  fraction  -§-.  This  very  fact,  however, 
makes  the  interval  -§-,  a  sufficiently  exact  realization  of  the  dis¬ 
tributive  property,  according  to  the  degree  of  exactness  with 
which  actual  plants  are  constructed.  But  |-  is  also  a  compar¬ 
atively  simple  cycle,  though  there  would  not  be  sufficient 
evidence  that  its  cyclic  character  is  an  essential  one,  or  other 
than  incidental  to  the  scale  of  exactness  in  the  structure  of 
plants,  if  there  did  not  exist  several  distinguishable  and  simpler 
cycles,  namely,  £ ,  -|,  and  The  cyclic  character  of  leaf 
arrangements  is,  indeed,  a  more  noticeable  feature  in  plants 
generally  than  the  distributive  one.  It  is  obviously  essential, 
and  involves  on  the  theory  of  adaptation  some  important 
utility.  Whatever  this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  it  has  to  be 
gained  by  means  directly  opposed  to  those  which  secure  dis¬ 
tribution;  that  is,  its  utility  depends  on  leaves  coming  together 
in  direction,  or  being  brought  nearer  to  each  other  than  they 
would  otherwise  be;  instead  of  their  being  dispersed  as  widely 
and  as  thoroughly  as  possible.  This  utility  is  obviously  to  be 
sought  in  the  internal  relations  of  leaves  to  each  other,  or 
their  connections  through  the  stem,  and  not  in  their  outward 
relations,  which  require  exposure,  expansion,  and  elbow-room. 
The  apparently  inconsistent  means  of  these  two  ends  are  both 
realized,  however,  without  interference,  in  the  actual  cycles 
of  natural  arrangements.  Through  the  simplicity  of  these 
cycles  leaves,  not  very  remote  on  the  stem,  are  brought  nearer 
to  each  other,  and  into  more  direct  internal  connection  than 
they  would  have  but  for  this  simplicity;  while,  in  the  more 
prevalent  natural  forms  of  the  cycle,  leaves  that  are  nearest  to 
each  other  on  the  stem  are  separated  as  widely  as  is  possible 
under  this  condition.  That  this  prevalence  is  due, to  selection, 
through  the  utility  already  considered,  has  been  shown  to  be 
sufficiently  probable.  I  propose  now  to  connect  the  preva¬ 
lence  of  simplicity  in  these  cycles  with  another  utility. 

Leaves  that  are  successive,  or  nearest  each  other  on  the  stem, 
may  be.  regarded  as  rivals,  and  as  rendering  each  other  no 
service.  Those  that  are  more  remote  may  come  into  relations 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


3r3 


of  dependence,  one  on  the  other.  Between  the  leaf  and  the 
stem  the  relations  of  nutrition  are  reciprocal.  At  first,  and  for 
the  development  of  the  leaf,  the  stem  furnishes  nutriment  to  it 
Afterwards  the  leaf  furnishes  nutriment  for  the  further  latera / 
expansion  of  the  stem.  The  development  of  the  stem  itself, 
first  in  length,  while  the  leaves  are  expanding,  and  afterwards 
in  breadth  and  firmness  through  the  nutrition  afforded  by  the 
developed  leaves,  has  the  effect,  and,  we  may  presume,  the  use 
or  function,  of  a  still  more  important  distribution  of  the  leaves 
than  that  we  have  considered.  We  have  hitherto  attended 
only  to  the  distribution  effected  by  the  character  of  the  diver¬ 
gences  of  leaves  around  the  stem.  Their  distribution  along 
the  stem,  or  their  separation  by  the  internodes  of  the  stem,  is 
a  still  more  direct  and  effective  mode  of  accomplishing  at  least 
one  of  the  uses  of  the  property  of  distribution,  namely,  ex¬ 
posure  to  light  and  air.  The  special  accomplishment  of  this 
important  end  in  the  higher  plants  is  secured  by  two  different 
means;  by  the  firm  fibrous  structure  and  the  breadth  of  stems, 
branches,  and  trunks  in  grasses,  shrubs,  and  trees,  and  by  the 
climbing  powers  and  prehensile  apparatus  of  climbing  plants; 
and  in  the  latter  we  find  the  highest  degree  of  specialization 
or  development  in  the  vegetable  world.  The  distribution 
effected  by  the  separation  of  leaves  along  the  stem  in  great 
measure  supersedes  the  value  of  their  distribution  around  it, 
so  far  as  the  ultimate  functions  of  leaves  are  concerned,  and 
independently  of  their  relations  in  development  or  in  the  bud; 
and  this  gives  freer  play  to  the  means  of  securing  whatever 
advantage  there  may  be  in  the  simpler  cyclic  arrangements, 
like  the  £  and  systems.  Accordingly  we  find,  in  general,  the 
simpler  cycles  on  the  stems  of  those  plants  that  have  the 
longest  internodes;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  compli¬ 
cated  cycles  are  found  only  in  cases  of  very  short  internodes 
or  in  great  condensations  of  leaves.  There  is  no  evidence, 
however,  that  in  the  condensed  form  in  which  undeveloped 
leaves  exist  in  the  bud  the  cycles  are  any  more  complicated 
than  on  the  stem.  Nor  ought  we  to  expect  such  evidence; 
for  it  is  a  false  analogy  that  would  lead  us  to  seek  for  types  in 
the  early  and  rude  forms  of  embryonic  life;  though,  if  the 

14 


3i4 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


simpler  cycles  were  really  derived  from  the  more  complicated 
ones,  rather  than  from  the  utility  common  to  all,  we  ought,  by 
the  analogy  of  embryology,  to  find  some  traces  of  the  process 
in  the  bud.  No  doubt  the  types  exhibited  by  the  mature  forms 
of  life  exist  in  the  embryo  or  bud,  though  not  in  a  visibly 
embodied  form;  but  rather  in  a  predetermined  mode  of  action 
in  vital  forces,  embodied  in  gemmules  rather  than  the  visible 
germ.  But  while  the  distribution  effected  by  the  internodes 
of  the  stem  thus  allows  the  simpler  cycles  to  occur,  it  does 
not  account  for  their  occurrence.  This,  moreover,  must 
depend  on  relations  in  mature,  or  else  in  growing  leaves,  to 
those  below  them;  and  not  on  their  earlier  relations  in  the 
bud;  since,  as  we  have  seen,  the  more  complicated  cycles  are 
the  best  fitted  for  these  relations,  and  in  mature  stems  are  only 
found  in  great  condensations  of  leaves ;  such  as  the  bud  also 
presents;  yet  without  any  greater  complication  than  the  stem 
has.  The  simplicity  of  the  cycles  in  stems  with  long  inter¬ 
nodes  has  the  effect  that  the  absolute  distance  between  two 
leaves  standing  one  over  the  other  is  not  so  great  as  it  other¬ 
wise  would  be.  There  is,  no  doubt,  a  disadvantage  in  long 
internodes,  or  in  the  separation  of  growing  parts  by  long  inter¬ 
vals  from  their  source  of  nutrition ;  a  disadvantage,  which  only  a 
better  exposure  to  light  and  air  for  their  subsequent  functions 
could  compensate.  On  the  theory  of  adaptation  there  would 
seem  to  be,  then,  some  advantage  to  the  younger  leaf  in 
standing  directly  over  an  older  one,  and  not  far  above  it;  a 
greater  advantage  than  in  any  other  position  at  the  same 
height;  and  this  advantage  could  apparently  be  no  other  than 
an  internal  nutritive  one,  having  reference  to  the  sources  or 
movements  of  sap  and  the  nutrition  conveyed  by  it.  But  sap 
'culates  with  nearly  equal  facility  around  and  along  the 
st<_m ;  and  if  the  lower  leaf  were  really  a  special  source  of 
nutrition  to  the  growing  one  above  it,  it  could  furnish  nutrition 
almost  as  readily  to  any  other  position  on  the  stem  at  the 
same  height  as  to  the  point  directly  above  it,  or  on  the  same 
side.  The  new  leaf  is  not  sensibly  nearer  the  market  on  ac¬ 
count  of  this  feature  in  the  arrangement.  But  may  there  not 
be  some  advantage  to  the  older  leaf  in  standing  directly  under 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


3*5 


the  younger?  Next  to  the  advantage  of  being  near  a  market, 
or  a  source  of  supplies,  is  the  advantage  of  being  in  the  line 
of  traffic.  This,  indeed,  is  in  part  what  it  is  to  be  a  market, 
rather  than  a  mine.  A  leaf  is  not  only  a  productive  or  indus¬ 
trial  centre,  but  a  commercial  one.  It  effects  exchanges,  both 
giving  and  receiving  supplies.  When  mature,  or  fully  estab¬ 
lished  in  this  capacity,  it  draws  from  the  roots  its  raw  material 
of  water  and  mineral  salts,  and  from  the  air  its  more  costly 
material,  and  in  exchange  sends  forth  into  the  great  commerce 
of  the  stem  its  wonderfully  intricate  fabrics  of  atoms,  woven 
on  the  sunbeam,  its  soluble  colloids.  Now,  although  sap  may 
flow  with  nearly  equal  facility  in  all  directions  in  the  stem,  it 
probably  does  flow  with  greatest  rapidity  in  the  direct  lines  of 
the  forces  that  impel  it,  the  lines  of  osmotic  force.  Sap  flows 
in  the  spring  most  freely  from  that  side  of  a  perforated  tree 
which  is  immediately  below  the  largest  branch.  This  shows 
that  even  in  the  least  active  condition  of  the  circulation,  when 
the  trunk  is  surcharged  with  sap,  the  forces  of  circulation  are 
not  simply  diffusive  or  hydrostatic;  and  they  must  be  much 
less  so  when  definite  outlets  of  this  supply  become  established 
in  the  growing  buds  and  leaves  of  the  spring-time.  The  char¬ 
acter  of  the  circulation  is  principally  determined  by  the 
hydraulic  action  of  osmotic  forces.  Water  may  flow  with 
equal  facility  in  any  part  of  a  river-bed,  and  across  as  well  as 
along;  but  it  actually  does  flow  fastest  along  the  middle.  The 
growing  leaf  has  different  needs  from  those  of  the  mature  one ; 
hence  they  are  not  rivals,  or  competitors  in  the  market,  but 
buyer  and  seller,  or  borrower  and  lender.  The  mature  leaf 
needs  from  the  stem  water  and  mineral  salts ;  the  growing  leaf 
needs  the  organic  materials  of  new  tissues.  The  mature  leaf 
helps  to  prepare  the  latter  by  concentrating  it,  withdrawing  the 
water,  and  adding  its  own  contribution  of  organic  material  in 
return.  But  while  aiding  its  younger  fellow  in  this  way,  it  is 
aided  in  return,  or  its  efficiency  is  increased,  by  the  increased 
circulation  produced  through  the  forces  of  movement  above  it. 
In  place  of  a  glut  in  the  market  we  have  an  active  exchange. 
There  is,  undoubtedly,  a  tendency  in  these  physiological 
causes,  however  feeble,  to  that  vertical  allignment  of  not  very 


3l6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSION'S. 


distant  leaves,  which  the  cyclic  character  of  the  spiral  arrange* 
ments  exhibits,  and  most  markedly  in  the  J  or  alternate  system. 

We  have  thus  assigned  more  or  less  probable  utilities  to  two 
prominent  features  in  the  particular  forms  of  the  spiral  and 
verticil  arrangements  of  leaves;  their  distributive  and  cyclic 
characters.  We  now  come  to  a  much  more  obscure  problem, 
which  connects  the  verticil  and  spiral  arrangements  in  general 
with  their  probable  utilities,  and  through  these  with  their  origin 
in  lower  forms  of  vegetable  life.  But  before  entering  upon  the 
study  of  this  as  an  actual  physical  problem,  it  is  necessary  to 
consider  what  are  the  real  meanings  of  the  terms  “  spiral  ”  and 
“whorl.”  Are  they  only  conventional  modes  of  representing 
the  phenomena  of  arrangement,  or  are  they  strictly  descriptive 
of  the  facts  in  their  physical  connections  ?  About  the  whorl 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  actual  physical  connections  and 
separations  of  leaves  in  this  type  of  arrangement  are  directly 
indicated  by  the  term;  but  the  ideal  geometrical  line  connect¬ 
ing  successive  leaves  in  the  so-called  spiral  arrangements  may 
be  a  purely  formal  element  in  the  description  of  them,  and  of 
no  material  account, — a  mode  of  reducing  them  to  order  in 
our  conceptions  of  them,  but  implying  no  physical  relation¬ 
ships.  There  are  several  ways  in  which  we  can  so  represent 
the  features  of  these  arrangements.  Connecting  by  an  ideal 
lin§  (which  may  have  no  physical  significance)  the  leaves 
nearest  to  each  other  on  the  developed  stem,  and  by  the  shorter 
way  round,  is  one  way, — the  more  common  way  of  represent¬ 
ing  their  arrangements.  The  direction  in  which  this  should  be 
drawn,  whether  to  the  right  or  the  left,  is  quite  arbitrary  in  the 
£  or  alternate  system.  Connecting,  for  other  cases,  the  leaves 
in  the  same  succession,  but  by  the  longer  way  round  is  anothei 
way.  These  are  distinctly  different  spiral  paths,  but  not  the 
only  ones  by  which  the  parts  of  these  arrangements  might  be 
represented  geometrically.  By  connecting  them  alternately,  as 
i  with  3,  and  this  with  5,  etc.,  and  2  with  4,  and  this  with  6,  etc., 
we  should  connect  the  leaves  of  the  various  arrangements  by 
two  spiral  paths,  and  these  either  by  the  longer  or  the  shorter 
way  round.  Or  again,  by  connecting  the  series  1,  4,  7,  etc.,  and 
2,  5,  8,  etc.,  and  3,  6,  9,  etc.,  we  should  include  all  the  leaves  in 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


3 17 


three  spiral  paths;  and  so  on.  In  some  cases  these  lines  would 
not  be  spiral,  but  the  vertical  allignments  we  have  considered. 
For.  example,  in  the  last  case  they  would  be  vertical  for  the 
cycle  |q  since  in  this  the  leaves  1  and  4,  or  2  and  5,  are  the 
beginnings  of  distinct  successive  cycles.  If  the  leaves  1,  2,  3, 
were  in  this  case  of  the  same  age,  or  at  the  same  height  on  the 
stem,  and  were  succeeded  at  an  interval  on  the  stem  by  4,  5, 
6,  also  coeval,  and  so  on,  we  should  have  the  main  feature 
of  the  verticil  arrangement,  but  not  the  kind  of  alternation 
that  belongs  to  natural  whorls.  Between  1,  2,  and  3  in  the 
natural  whorl  equal  intervals  exist,  namely,  -J;  and  also  be¬ 
tween  4,  5,  and  6,  and  so  on;  but  between  3  and  4  the  inter¬ 
val  in  natural  three-leaved  whorls  is  either  -jf,  or  -J,  according 
as  we  choose  our  spiral  paths,  or  determine  which  member  of 
the  upper  whorl  shall  be  counted  as  the  fourth  leaf. 

We  perceive,  therefore,  that  there  is  no  continuity  or  principle 
of  connection  between  spiral  arrangements  and  the  whorls ;  and, 
moreover,  that  these  spiral  paths  are  purely  ideal  or  geometrical 
lines,  so  far  as  we  have  yet  seen.  Is  there  any  good  reason  for 
supposing  that  the  simplest  of  these,  which  connects  successive 
leaves  on  the  stem  the  shorter  way  round,  is  any  less  formal  or 
conventional  than  the  others;  or  indicates  a  real  connection  of 
the  leaves  on  this  path,  or  any  closer  original  real  connection 
among  them?  There  are  two  significant  facts  bearing  on  this 
question  to  which  I  have  already  adverted.  The  first  is  that 
the  natural  fractions  of  the  lower  group  of  our  table,  or  those 
peculiar  to  the  last  two  series  of  the  theory  of  Phyllotaxy, 
represent  the  less  frequent  forms  of  spiral  arrangements,  and 
that  if  the  successive  members  of  these  arrangements  are  con¬ 
nected  in  the  usual  mode  by  this  simplest  path,  or  the  shorter 
way  round,  these  members  are  seen  to  have  less  angles  of 
divergence  than  those  of  the  more  common  arrangements ;  or 
are  much  nearer  each  other  on  this  line  than  the  others  are. 
We  should  thus  have  the  fractions  f,  J,  -§,  1,  all  of  which 
indicate  comparatively  small  divergences,  smaller  than  any 
among  the  common  ones.  The  second  fact  is  the  observation 
that  these  arrangements  are  relatively  more  common  among 
fossil  plants  than  among  surviving  ones.  These  facts  agree 


3l8 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


well  with  the  supposition  that  this  simplest  spiral  path  is  unlike 
the  others,  and  is  not  a  merely  formal  assumption  for  the  rep¬ 
resentation  of  leaf-arrangements,  but  the  trace  of  a  former 
physical  connection  of  the  members,  or  even  of  a  continuity 
of  leafy  expansion  along  this  path;  a  leaf-like  expansion 
resembling  a  spiral  stairway.  The  leaves,  according  to  this 
supposition,  are  the  relics  of  segments  made  in  such  a  spiral 
leaf-like  expansion  around  the  stem;  remnants  of  it  grown 
smaller  and  smaller,  or  more  widely  separated  as  they  became 
more  advantageously  situated  through  the  developments  of  the 
stem  in  length  and  firmness ;  and  expanding,  perhaps,  in  an 
opposite  direction  along  the  leaf-stems ;  or,  losing  their  leaf- 
character  and  expansion  altogether,  as  they  became  adapted 
to  other  uses  in  the  economy  of  the  higher  vegetable  life, 
namely,  the  use  of  the  leaf-stem  itself,  as  in  the  tendril,  and 
the  uses  of  leaf-like  extensions,  as  in  the  reproductive  organs 
of  the  flower. 

But  are  there  any  surviving  instances  of  such  continuous 
spiral  leaf-like  expansions  on  vegetable  stems;  or,  in  default 
of  these,  could  there  be  any  utility  in  such  an  arrangement 
itself  to  justify  the  supposition  of  it  as  the  basis  of  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  more  special  forms?  Before  considering  this 
question,  however,  I  will  consider  what  other  resources  of 
explanation  hypothesis  can  command.  The  spiral  arrange¬ 
ment  might  be  supposed  to  be  the  result  of  a  physiological 
necessity  among  the  laws  of  growth,  through  which  single 
leaves  would  be  produced  at  regular  intervals  or  steps  of  de¬ 
velopment,  and  placed  so  as  to  compass  the  utilities  we  have 
already  considered,  namely,  those  of  horizontal  and  longitudi¬ 
nal  distribution  in  successive  leaves,  and  vertical  allignment  in 
remoter  ones.  This  would  account  for  the  spiral  arrangements, 
and  it  may  be  a  superior  mode  of  growth,  or  involve  some 
physiological  utility;  but  that  it  is  not  a  necessity,  is  proved  by 
the  arrangements  of  the  whorl,  in  which  all  the  members  of  a 
group  of  leaves  are  simultaneously  produced.  The  existence 
of  the  whorl,  then,  sets  this  hypothesis  aside.  Again,  we 
might  suppose  on  the  theory  of  types  that  these  two  great 
types  of  arrangement  are  two  fundamental  facts  in  the  highei 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


319 


vegetable  life,  parts  of  a  supernatural  plan ;  two  aboriginal  and 
absolute  features  in  this  plan.  But  this,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
not  to  solve  the  problem,  but  to  surrender  it ;  or  rather  to  de¬ 
mand  its  surrender,  and  forbid  its  solution.  Again,  the  pro¬ 
duction  of  adventitious  buds  in  plants,  or  in  separated  parts  of 
plants,  as  in  cuttings,  dependent  only,  apparently,  on  a  favora¬ 
ble  situation  for  nutrition,  is  of  common  occurrence  even  in 
the  higher  plants.  If  we  could  suppose  that  the  definite  hori¬ 
zontal  distributions  of  successive  leaves  were  wholly  sup¬ 
erseded  in  their  utility  by  the  distributions  along  the  stem,  or 
that  the  leaves  could  thus  be  sufficiently  exposed  to  light  and 
air;  the  power  of  the  adventitious  production  of  buds  or  leaves 
in  favorable  situations  might  have  caused  an  arrangement 
without  this  feature  of  spiral  regularity.  But  they  would  still 
be  brought  into  vertical  allignments,  if  the  physiological  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  simpler  cycles,  which  has  been  pointed  out,  be 
a  real  and  effective  one;  for  even  the  so-called  adventitious 
production  of  buds  may  reasonably  be  supposed  to  be  gov¬ 
erned  by  supplies  of  nutriment.  Moreover,  these  vertical  lines 
would  be  placed  at  equal  intervals  around  the  stem,  on  account 
of  the  advantage  there  would  be  in  such  a -distribution,  both 
for  internal  and  external  nutrition.  But  though  leaves  would 
thus  be  placed  at  convenient  distances  along  equidistant  verti¬ 
cal  lines,  there  would  be  no  consideration  of  utility  to  govern 
their  relations  to  each  other  on  different  lines,  so  as  to  throw 
them  into  whorls,  or  into  definite  spiral  arrangements.  It 
might,  however,  be  advantageous  for  leaves  on  a  line  between 
two  others  to  be  placed  in  intermediate  positions  with  respect 
to  the  leaves  of  these  two,  and  if  the  latter  were  placed  at  the 
same  heights  we  should  have  a  sector  of  three  whorls;  that  is, 
two  leaves  of  the  highest  and  two  of  the  lowest  whorl,  and 
one  leaf  of  the  intermediate  whorl.  But  such  an  arrangement 
disregards  or  sacrifices  in  the  structure  of  the  whorl  itself  the 
advantage,  if  it  be  one,  of  such  an  alternation.  It  cannot  be 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  leaf  on  an  intermediate  line  would 
seek  distance  and  isolation,  from  those  of  the  lines  beside  it, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  seek  close  connection  horizontally  with 
those  ot  its  own  whorl.  This  would  be  directly  opposed  to 


32° 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


the  accommodation  of  uses  in  spiral  arrangements.  The 
structure  of  whorls,  and  the  alternation  in  successive  ones, 
appear,  therefore,  to  be  of  distinct  origins.  Whatever  advan¬ 
tage  there  is  in  the  former  appears  to  be  sacrificed  by  this 
alternation,  and  by  the  spiral  arrangements;  or,  if  it  be  a  dis¬ 
advantage,  it  is  avoided  by  these.  It  is  probably  on  the  whole 
a  disadvantage;  since  it  is  ill-fitted  for  great  extensions  and 
branchings  in  stems,  for  which  the  simpler  spiral  arrangements 
appear  peculiarly  fitted.  This  contrast,  however,  cannot  be 
regarded  as  the  origin  of  the  contrasted  types  themselves,  and 
the  soundest  conclusion  appears  to  be,  that,  whatever  adapta¬ 
tions  they  may  have,  these  are  only  incidental,  and  are  not 
concerned  in  their  origination,  either  directly  through  physio¬ 
logical  laws  of  growth,  or  indirectly  by  Natural  Selection. 
They  are  properly  genetic  characters.  This  is  confirmed  by 
the  fact  that  the  particular  arrangement  for  each  plant  is  pro¬ 
vided  for,  or  already  completed  in  the  bud;  that  is,  it  is  not  a 
result  of  laws  of  development  in  general,  but  of  the  special 
nature  of  the  plant,  or  the  predisposition  of  its  vital  forces. 
In  regard  to  the  causes  which  I  have  supposed  to  control  the 
so-called  adventitious  production  of  buds  or  leaves,  it  should 
not  be  supposed  that  these  exert  in  actual  plants  any  consider¬ 
able  influence;  though  the  plant’s  particular  laws  of  growth 
are  probably  not  in  opposition  to  them.  They  should  only  be 
considered  as  modifying  agencies  reacting  on  the  formative 
forces ;  but  they  fail,  as  we  have  seen,  to  account  for  the  spiral 
and  verticil  arrangements,  and  their  contrasts  through  any 
utility  which  could  modify  these  forces.  But  in  concluding 
therefore  that  these  general  types  of  arrangement  ought  to  be 
regarded  as  only  genetic  characters  in  the  higher  plants,  and 
as  presenting  no  important  advantage  or  disadvantage,  inde¬ 
pendently  of  the  special  forms  which  they  have  acquired,  or 
in  present  forms  of  life;  we  are  not  precluded  by  such  a  con¬ 
clusion  from  the  further  inquiry  as  to  what  former  advantage 
there  could  have  been  in  less  specialized  forms,  before  these 
genetic  characters  had  lost  their  special  significance  (if  any 
ever  existed),  and  when  they  could  have  stood  in  more  im¬ 
mediate  and  important  relations  to  the  conditions  of  the  plant’s 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


321 


existence.  In  this  inquiry  our  principal  guide  must  be  hy¬ 
pothesis,  but  it  will  be  hypothesis  under  the  check  and  control 
of  the  theory  of  adaptation.  It  will  not  be  legitimate  to 
assume  any  unknown  form  as  a  past  form  of  life,  and  as  a 
basis  for  these  arrangements,  without  showing  that  such  an 
hypothetical  form  would  have  been  a  useful  modification  of  a 
still  simpler  one,  which  still  exists  and  is  known.  In  this  way 
we  may  be  able  to  bridge  over  the  chasm  that  separates  the 
higher  and  lower  forms  of  vegetable  life. 

Our  problem  then  becomes,  Whether,  in  the  absence  of  any 
surviving  instances  of  continuous  spiral  leaf-like  expansions  on 
vegetable  stems,  we  can  find  any  utility  in  such  an  arrange¬ 
ment  that  could  act  to  modify  simpler  known  forms,  and  con¬ 
vert  them  into  this  ?  If  we  suppose  our  hypothetical  spiral 
4eaf-blade  to  be  untwisted,  it  becomes  a  single-blade  frond,  or 
a  frond  with  one  of  its  blades  undeveloped.  In  considering 
what  advantage  there  could  be  in  the  twist,  we  should  revert 
to  the  general  objects  or  functions  of  leaf-like  expansions. 
They  are  obviously  to  expose  a  large  surface  to  the  action  of 
light  on  its  tissues,  and  to  bring  it  into  the  most  complete  con¬ 
tact  with  the  medium  in  which  the  plant  lives, — with  water, 
or,  in  more  advanced  plants,  with  the  air.  Secondly,  to 
accomplish  this  with  the  least  expenditure  of  material;  not  by 
an  absolute,  but  a  relative-  economy,  which  has  reference  to 
the  needs  of  other  parts,  like  the  stem  or  roots.  In  many  of 
the  higher  plants  the  developments  of  the  stem  serve  to  dimin¬ 
ish  to  the  utmost  the  amount  of  this  material,  and  the  needed 
expansion,  by  giving  to  them  advantageous  positions.  The 
first  of  these  objects  is  secured  in  the  simplest  and  rudest  man¬ 
ner  in  the  a/gce,  as  represented  by  the  sea-weeds.  This  is  a 
simple  expansion  of  cellular  tissue.  But  even  here  we  do  not 
find  perfectly  plane  surfaces,  facing  only  two  ways,  and  allow¬ 
ing  the  water  to  glide  smoothly  and  unobstructed  over  them. 
The  corrugated  surfaces  of  many  of  them,  and  in  the  large 
leaves  of  some  land-plants,  are  doubtless  due  to  unequal 
growths  in  the  cellular  tissues;  but  such  a  physiological  explan¬ 
ation  of  this  feature  does  not  preclude  the  supposition  of  its 
being  a  fixed  character  in  a  plant,  or  becoming  such  in  conse- 


322 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


quence  of  its  utility.  It  certainly  serves  the  purpose  of 
opposing  the  leaf-surface  to  many  directions,  both  with  refer¬ 
ence  to  the  incidence  of  light,  and  to  the  movement  of  the 
surrounding  medium, — to  water-currents,  or  to  breezes.  Seg¬ 
mentation,  again,  such  as  is  seen  in  the  fronds  of  brakes  or 
ferns,  is  another  way  of  bringing  the  moving  medium  to 
impinge  on  the  leaf-surface;  but  the  feasibility  of  this  depends 
on  the  fibrous  frame- work  which  the  leaves  of  land-plants  have 
acquired  for  the  support  of  their  softer  tissues.  Such  a  seg¬ 
mentation  also  appears  among  the  higher  plants  in  compound 
leaves  and  in  whorls;  and,  indeed,  the  whole  foliage  of  trees 
and  shrubs  may,  from  this  point  of  view,  be  regarded  as  the 
reduced  segments  of  the  blades  of  branching  fronds,  turned  in 
all  directions  in  search  of  light,  and  inviting  the  movements  of 
air  through  their  expanded  interstices.  Such  is  the  kind  of 
utility  that  may  be  claimed  for  the  structure  of  our  hypothet¬ 
ical  spiral  frond.  Another  utility  in  this  structure  is  obvious 
when  we  consider  the  transition  of  plant-life  from  aquatic  con¬ 
ditions  to  those  of  the  dry  land  and  the  air;  as  vegetation 
slowly  crept  from  its  watery  cradle,  or  was  left  stranded  by  the 
retiring  sea.  In  default  of  strength  in  its  material,  such  as  a 
slowly  acquired  fibrous  structure  or  frame-work  ultimately  gave 
to  it  in  this  transition,  the  strongest  form  would  be  the  most 
advantageous  in  sustaining  the  weight  of  the  no  longer  buoyant 
plant.  A  spiral  arrangement  of  the  blade  around  a  compara¬ 
tively  firm,  and,  perhaps,  already  somewhat  fibrous  stem,  would 
come  nearer  fulfilling  this  condition  than  any  other  conceivable 
modification  of  the  frond. 

We  have,  so  far,  in  conformity  to  the  spiral  arrangement  in 
leaves,  supposed  this  twisted  frond  to  be  a  single-bladed  one, 
or  with  only  one  blade  developed.  This  would  be  a  first  step 
in  that  reduction  of  leaf-expansion  which  a  more  advantageous 
situation  of  it  would  allow;  and  might  be  required,  even  at 
this  early  stage  of  atmospheric  plant-life,  on  account  of  the 
greatly  increased  importance  of  the  roots  and  stem.  But  this 
hypothesis  is  not  necessary  in  general  for  the  ends  we  have 
considered.  A  two-bladed  frond  might  be  similarly  twisted 
and  give  rise  to  a  double  spiral  surface  like  a  double  spiral 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


323 


stair-way,  or  like  the  blade  of  an  auger ;  or  such  a  surface  as 
the  two  handles  of  the  auger  describe  as  they  are  revolved, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  carried  forward  in  the  direction  of  the 
boring.  The  simplest  segmentation  of  such  a  twisted  frond, 
after  the  stem  had  acquired  sufficient  strength,  and  such  a  sub¬ 
sequent  reduction  of  the  segments  as  might  be  required  for  the 
nutrition  of  the  stem,  would  give  rise  to  parts,  which,  turned 
upwards  to  face  the  sky,  and  also  separated,  perhaps,  by  the 
growth  of  internodes  in  the  lengthening  stem,  would  result  in 
what  we  may  regard  as  the  original  form  of  whorls,  namely,  a 
continuous  leaf-like  expansion  around  the  stem.  The  origin 
of  the  whorl  arrangement  itself  would  thus  be  distinct,  as  we 
have  found  that  it  ought  to  be,  from  the  origin  of  the  relations 
in  the  parts  of  whorls  to  one  another,  and  to  those  of  adjacent 
whorls.  These  would  be  results  of  a  subsequent  segmentation, 
and  would  be  determined  by  the  utilities  which  we  have  con¬ 
sidered  in  this  and  in  the  spiral  arrangements.  And  so  both 
this  and  the  spiral  arrangements  as  general  types  of  structure, 
though  originating,  as  I  have  supposed,  in  useful  relations  to 
former  conditions  of  existence,  may  be  regarded  in  relation  to 
later  developments  as  useless,  and  merely  inherited  or  genetic 
types;  the  bases  on  which  subsequent  utilities  had  to  erect 
existing  adaptations  of  structure.  The  segmentation  of  the 
single  spiral  frond  would  at  first  have  little  or  no  relation  to 
these  more  refined  utilities  of  arrangement,  but  out  of  all  the 
variable  and  possible  arrangements  so  produced  there  would 
be  a  gradual  selection,  and  a  tendency  toward  the  prevalence 
of  those  special  forms,  which  are  at  present  the  most  common 
ones.  The  typical  or  unique  angle  of  the  'theory  of  Phyl- 
lotaxy  would  thus  appear  to  be  the  goal  toward  which  they 
tend,  rather  than  the  origin  of  the  spiral  arrangements.  But 
since  a  simple  cyclic  arrangement  appears  to  have  also  an  im¬ 
portant  value,  we  cannot  concede  to  the  typical  angle  the 
exclusive  dignity  of  even  this  position. 

The  segmentation  I  have  supposed  in  this  process  should 
not  be  regarded  as  an  hypothetical  element  in  it,  since  it  is  ^ 
well-established  law  of  development.  Distinct  organs  are  not 
separately  produced  from  the  beginnings  of  their  growth,  but 


324 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


make  part  of  their  progress  in  conjunction,  or  while  incorpo¬ 
rated  in  forms,  from  which  they  become  afterwards  separated ; 
and  become  then  more  and  more  special  in  their  characters, 
or  different  from  other  parts.  It  is  this  differentiation  and 
separation  of  parts  out  of  already  grown  wholes  which  dis¬ 
tinguishes  development  from  mere  growth.  The  analogy  of ' 
the-  phases  of  development  in  embryonic  or  germinal  life  to 
development  in  general  is  liable,  however,  to  be  carried  too 
far;  and  the  fact  is  liable  to  be  overlooked,  that  these  phases  of 
growth  are  special  acquisitions  of  the  higher  forms  of  life, 
which  have  features  of  adaptation  peculiar  to  them.  But  the 
more  general  features  of  them,  and  the  useless,  or  merely 
genetic  phases,  may  safely  be  regarded  as  traces  of  past  char¬ 
acters  of  adaptation,  which  a  change  in  the  mode  and  order 
of  development  has  not  obliterated;  while  new  adaptations 
have  been  added,  that  have  no  relation  to  any  past  or  simpler 
forms  of  life,  but  only  to  the  advantages  which  embryonic  or 
germinal  modes  of  reproduction  have  secured. 

If  we  should  follow  out  the  phases  of  general  development  in 
the  progress  of  the  leaf  along  the  line  of  its  highest  ascent  in 
development,  from  the  segmentations  we  have  supposed  in  the 
twisted  frond,  we  should  soon  arrive  at  the  steps  already  familiar 
in  the  principles  of  vegetable  morphology.  In  these  we  have 
the  same  law  of  segmentation  or  separation  of  parts,  and  the 
same  successive  relations  of  genetic  and  adaptive  characters. 
What  was  produced  for  one  purpose  becomes  serviceable  to  a 
new  one ;  and  in  its  capacity  as  a  merely  genetic  character,  or 
as  an  inherited  feature,  becomes  the  basis  for  the  acquisition  of 
new  adaptations.  Thus  the  fibrous  structure,  at  first  useful  in 
sustaining  the  softer  tissues  of  the  leaf,  becomes  the  means  of 
a  longitudinal  development  of  it,  and  its  more  complete  expos¬ 
ure  to  light  and  air  by  the  growth  of  the  foot-stalk.  This  stalk 
acquires  next  a  new  utility  in  climbing-plants  to  which  it 
becomes  exclusively  adapted  in  the  tendril.  The  adaptive 
characters  of  the  tendril  are  its  later  acquisitions.  Its  genetic 
characters,  such  as  its  position  on  the  stem,  and  its  relations  to 
the  leaves,  become  useless  or  merely  inherited  characters. 
The  contrast  of  genetic  and  adaptive  characters  appears  thus 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


325 


to  have  no  absolute  value  in  the  structure  and  lives  of  organ¬ 
isms,  but  only  a  relative  one.  The  first  are  related  principally 
to  past  and  generally  unknown  adaptations;  the  second  to 
present  and  more  obvious  ones. 

In  accordance  with  this  law  I  have  supposed  that  the  gen¬ 
eral  features  of  the  two  types  of  leaf-arrangement,  for  which 
no  present  utilities  appear  in  the  lives  of  the  higher  plants, 
were  nevertheless  useful  features  in  former  conditions  of  vege¬ 
table  life.  The  more  special  features  of  these  arrangements 
should  not,  from  this  point  of  view,  be  regarded  as  derived  one 
from  another,  much  less  from  the  typical  or  unique  form  of  the 
theory  of  Phyllotaxy.  In  one  sense  they  may,  indeed,  be  said 
to  be  derived  from  this  form,  at  least  some  of  them;  yet  not 
from  it  as  an  actually  past  form  or  progenitor,  but  rather  from 
the  utility  which  it  represents  in  the  abstract.  I  have,  how¬ 
ever,  pointed  out  that  another  utility,  shown  in  the  simpler 
cyclic  arrangements,  has  an  equal  claim  to  this  spiritual  pater¬ 
nity.  The  actual  forms  of  the  spiral  arrangements  in  leaves 
should,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  forms  independently  se¬ 
lected,  and  as  selected  on  the  two  principles  of  utility,  which 
we  have  considered,  out  of  a  very  large  variety  of  original 
forms.  We  have  seen  that  even  those  forms  which  survive 
include  almost  all  possible  ones  that  could  be  distinguished; 
though  the  more  prevalent  ones  are  at  present  in  the  minority. 
We  have  also  seen  that  the  later  fact,  and  the  more  frequent 
occurrence  of  inferior  forms  among  fossil  plants,  are  almost  the 
only  grounds  on  which  the  inductive  foundation  of  the  theory 
of  Phyllotaxy  could  be  regarded  as  well  established.  On  these 
grounds,  and  on  this  foundation,  I  have  sought  by  hypothesis 
to  reconstruct  the  continuity  of  higher  and  lower  forms  in 
vegetable  life ;  and  through  this  to  find  the  origin  of  the  prin¬ 
cipal  types  of  arrangement  in  leaves.  The  speculation  lies 
wholly  within  the  limits  prescribed  for  legitimate  hypothesis  in 
science.  It  does  not  assume  utilities  in  themselves  unknown, 
but  assumes  only  unobserved  or  unknown  applications  of  them, 
and  raises  to  the  rank  of  essential  properties  relations  of  use, 
which,  at  first  sight,  appear  to  be  only  accidental  ones.  At¬ 
tention  may  be  claimed  at  the  least  for  it  as  an  illustration  of 


326 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


the  method  by  which  the  principle  of  Natural  Selection  is  to 
be  applied  as  a  working  hypothesis  in  the  investigations  of 
general  physiology  or  physical  biology. 

Many  features  in  the  structure  of  leaves,  not  relating  to 
their  arrangements,  fall  beyond  the  proper  province  of  this 
inquiry,  but  equally  illustrate  the  relative  nature  of  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  genetic  and  adaptive  characters.  The  gen¬ 
eral  character  common  to  all  leaves  and  leaf-like  organs  has  an 
obvious  utility  with  reference  to  the  function  of  nutrition. 
Some  special  modifications  have  the  purposes  of  defense,  as  in 
the  thorn;  of  mechanical  support,  as  in  the  tendril;  and  of 
reproduction,  as  in  the  parts  of  the  flower.  But  the  vast 
variety  of  forms  which  leaves  and  the  parts  of  flowers  present 
do  not  suggest  any  obvious  uses.  On  the  theory  of  adaptation 
they  would  naturally  be  referred  to  a  combination  of  adaptive 
and  inherited  features.  A  fixed  proportion  between  the  two 
principal  tissues  in  a  plant  due  to  some  past  utility  may,  with¬ 
out  being  changed,  become  adapted  to  new  external  relations, 
or  to  new  physiological  conditions,  through  various  arrange¬ 
ments  of  them  in  the  structure  of  the  leaf;  and  this  would 
give  rise  to  a  great  variety  of  forms.  The  forms  of  notched 
and  sinuated  leaves  are  referable  to  that  process  of  segmenta¬ 
tion  and  reduction  in  leaf-expansions,  which  we  have  seen  to 
be  so  important  a  process  in  the  derivation  of  the  higher 
plants.  But  another  principle  of  utility  comes  into  play  in  the 
lives  of  the  higher  plants,  similar  to  that  which  appears  to  be 
the  origin  of  some  of  the  more  conspicuous  external  characters 
of  animals,  namely,  what  produces  distinguishableness  and 
individuation  in  an  animal  race.  No  doubt  the  laws  of  inher¬ 
itance  and  Natural  Selection  account  for  much  of  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  individuality  in  races,  or  for  the  fact  that  variation  has  a 
very  limited  range  compared  to  the  differences  between  species, 
so  far  as  it  affects  any  useful  quality  or  character.  But  varia¬ 
tion,  not  only  in  animals,  but  also  in  many  of  the  higher  plants, 
is  much  more  limited  than  these  causes  seem  capable  of  ac¬ 
counting  for.  It  is,  apparently,  as  limited  in  respect  to  useless 
though  conspicuous  features  as  in  those  that  are  of  recognized 
value  to  life.  Sexual  Selection,  through  which  the  characters 


ARRANGEMENT  OF  LEA  VES. 


327 


of  animals  are  chosen  by  themselves,  or  brought  into  relation 
to  their  perceptive  and  other  psychical  powers,  is  the  cause 
assigned  for  this  fact  in  the  case  of  animals;  that  is,  forms  are 
chosen  for  their  appearance,  or  for  the  pleasure  they  give  to 
the  senses.  But  plants  have  no  senses,  except  a  sense  of  * 
touch;  and  they  have  no  other  known  psychical  powers. 
Nevertheless  they  present  many  conspicuous  features  of  beauty 
to  the  eye,  and  many  give  forth  agreeable  and  characteristic 
odors.  And  such  characters  are  apparently  as  fixed  in  many 
of  the  higher  plants  as  in  animals.  The  theory  of  types  and 
the  doctrine  of  Final  Causes  regard  this  fixedness  and  individ¬ 
uality  as  ends  in  themselves,  or  else  as  existing  for  the  service 
of  some  higher  form  of  life,  or  ultimately  even  for  the  uses  of 
human  life.  But  the  theory  of  the  adaptation  of  every  feature 
in  a  form  of  life  to  its  own  uses  is  not  without  resources  for 
the  explanation  of  these  characters  in  plants;  for  though  the 
plant  has  no  sense  to  appreciate,  or  power  to  select,  its  own 
features  of  individuality  and  beauty,  yet  the  lives  of  many  of 
the  higher  plants  are  essentially  dependent  on  such  power  in 
insects;  so  that  whatever  character  renders  them  attractive  to 
insects,  or  distinguishable  by  their  sight,  may  be  said  to  be  of 
use  to  plants  for  the  ends  of  reproduction,  and  tends  in  this 
way  to  become  a  fixed  or  only  slightly  variable  character. 
That  this  cause  may  have  acted  not  only  to  determine  definite 
shapes,  colors,  and  odors  in  flowers,  but  also  definite  features 
in  the  foliage  of  plants,  as  the  marks  or  signs  of  these,  and 
that  the  value  of  such  signs  may  have  determined  a  greater 
degree  of  fixedness  or  constancy  in  the  arrangements,  as  well 
as  in  the  shapes  of  leaves,  is  an  hypothesis  that  may  be  added 
to  those  we  have  already  considered,  concerning  the  utilities 
of  these  arrangements.  This  cause  would  tend  to  give  promi¬ 
nence  to  those  features  in  arrangement  which  are  most  con¬ 
spicuous  to  the  eye,  namely,  those  of  cyclic  regularity  and 
simplicity.  Such  an  explanation  of  this  cyclic  character,  or 
the  simple  and  definite  arrangements  of  leaves  at  short  inter¬ 
vals  in  vertical  lines  on  the  stem,  or  the  utility  of  this  as  a  dis¬ 
tinguishing  character  of  the  plant,  is  not  inconsistent  with  the 
physiological  utility  in  these  arrangements,  which  I  have 


328 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


pointed  out ;  but  the  two,  in  co-operating  to  the  production  of 
the  same  forms,  would  illustrate  a  principle  in  the  economy  of 
life  which  has  a  wide  application, — the  principle  of  indirect 
utility  or  correlative  acquisition,  dependent  on  ultimate  laws  in 
physical  and  mental  natures, — through  which  independent 
utilities  are  realized  by  the  same  means,  or  the  same  means  are 
made  serviceable  to  more  than  one  distinct  end.  In  such  ulti¬ 
mate,  underived  relations'  of  adaptation  in  nature,  we  find 
principles  of  connection  and  a  unity  of  plan  which  cannot  be 
referred  to  any  accidents  of  history  or  development. 


McCOSH  ON  INTUITIONS.* 


The  philosophical  and  religious  writings  of  Dr.  McCosh 
have  already  secured  for  him  a  prominent  position  among 
living  thinkers,  and  considerable  influence  both  in  Great  Brit¬ 
ain  and  America.  The  present  work  f  exhibits  so  much  ability, 
good  sense,  and  philosophical  acumen  that  it  will  doubt¬ 
less  increase  his  reputation  and  prove  him  a  worthy  successor 
of  the  distinguished  metaphysicians  who  have  rendered  his 
native  land  famous  in  the  contests  of  philosophy.  Though  in 
many  respects  original,  professing  to  follow  no  school,  and  in 
reality  independent  in  its  spirit  of  all  authority  but  that  of  the 
religious  truths  in  behalf  of  which  it  is  written,  this  work  is 
nevertheless  substantially  a  development  from  the  Scottish 
school.  The  author  regards  in  the  same  light  with  this  school 
the  range  and  province  of  metaphysical  inquiry,  and  treats  the 
doctrines  of  all  other  schools  in  the  same  spirit.  He  finds  in 
the  writings  of  Reid  and  Stewart,  it  is  true,  statements  which 
would  logically  “land  us  in  very  serious  consequences,”  but 
with  the  essence  of  their  doctrines,  and  especially  with  the 
natural  realism  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  he  strongly  sympa¬ 
thizes,  though  he  goes  somewhat  beyond  Hamilton  in  his 
theory  of  immediate  consciousness. 

His  principal  problem  appears  to  have  been  to  discover  a 
theory  of  consciousness  which  shall  assure  us  of  as  much  as 
possible  without  carrying  our  assent  on  to  the  extremes  to 
‘which  the  statements  of  philosophers  too  often  logically  tend. 
He  seeks,  that  is,  for  a  theory  which  shall  assure  us  of  the 


*From  The  Nation,  Nov.  16,  1865. 

t  “  The  Intuitions  of  the  Mind  Inductively  Investigated.  By  the  Rev.  James  Mc¬ 
Cosh,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  Logic  and  Metaphysics  in  Queen’s  College,  Belfast.”  New 
and  revised  edition.  8vo  pp.  444. 


33°  _ 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


reality  and  permanence  of  the  external  world  without  leading 
us  into  materialism,  or  into  a  belief  of  the  absolute  permanence 
of  matter;  which  shall  assure  us  of  the  reality  of  cause  and 
effect  and  the  existence  of  power  in  the  world  without  bringing 
us  to  the  “dismal  consequences”  to  which  Kant’s  analysis 
of  causation  appears  to  lead;  a  theory  which  shall  guarantee 
us  a  knowledge  of  substance  or  substantive  reality,  without 
upsetting  our  personality  and  landing  us  in  pantheism;  and 
which,  at  the  same  time,  shall  be  free  from  the  psychological 
objections  that,  since  the  time  of  Locke,  have  been  urged 
against  certain  forms  of  the  doctrine  of  intuitive  universal 
truths. 

A  fundamental  principle  of  Dr.  McCosh’s  system  is  that  the 
mind  always  begins  with  the  concrete,  the  singular,  and  the 
individual  in  its  acquisition  of  knowledge,  and  arrives  at  uni¬ 
versal  truths — not,  indeed,  as  the  results  of  a  process,  but  in 
the  course  of  a  process,  in  which  the  elements  of  universal 
judgments  must  be  produced  by  particular  experiences  and 
special  judgments.  These  particulars  are,  however,  of  such  a 
nature  that  they  warrant'  the  universal  judgment,  not  by  the 
cumulative  force  of  experience,  but  by  the  inherent  force  of 
each  particular  conviction,  which  comes  from  a  power  in  the 
mind,  and  only  awaits  the  formation  of  the  proper  formula  by 
generalization  in  order  to  pronounce  a  decision  of  a  universal 
character. 

The  author  thus  avoids  the  objections  which  have  been  so 
often  urged  against  the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas.  Universal 
judgments  exist,  he  thinks,  in  the  mind  originally  only  as  laws 
of  our  mental  faculties,  determining  them  to  “look  for”  cer¬ 
tain  facts  which  are  really  universal,  but  are  only  discovered  in 
individual  cases;  and  the  individual  decisions  carry  in  them  the 
truth  of  the  universal. 

Having  thus  defined  intuitive  knowledge,  our  author  pro¬ 
ceeds  to  show  how  such  knowledge  can  be  distinguished  from* 
other  kinds,  and  he  lays  down  the  tests  which  the  philosophy 
of  common  sense  has  prescribed  in  the  writings  of  the  Scottish 
school,  the  tests,  namely,  of  self-evidence,  necessity,  and  cath¬ 
olicity  or  universality  in  human  beliefs.  He  divides  the  cog- 


Me  COSH  ON  INTUITIONS. 


33* 


nitive  acts  of  the  mind  into  three  species,  and  adopts  as  the 
generic  name  for  them  the  theological  term  “convictions.” 
There  are  the  cognitive  convictions,  which  decide  immediately 
that  an  object  exists,  not  only  in  relation  to  our  faculties,  but 
independently  of  them.  By  our  cognitions  we  know,  through 
sense-perception  and  self-consciousness,  that  something  in 
particular  exists,  has  existed,  and  will  continue  to  exist.  In 
other  words,  that  something  has  present  existence  and  present 
permanence.  Such  cognitions  also  decide  immediately  that 
the  thing  exists  in  space  or  is  extended;  also  that  it  has  power, 
or  is  a  cause  and  will  produce  an  effect.  All  this  the  intuitive 
powers  of  cognition  anticipate  by  their  innate  nature,  and  they 
“look  for”  and  discover  all  this  in  special  experiences. 

Such  intuitions  precede,  both  logically  and  chronologically, 
all  other  “convictions.”  In  this  the  author  dissents  from 
Hamilton’s  doctrine,  which  supposes  a  faculty  of  faith  to  un¬ 
derlie  all  our  cognitive  acts.  “  Intuitive  beliefs  ”  form  with 
him  a  derived  class  of  “convictions” — not  derived  from  our 
cognitions  logically,  but  from  them  as  furnishing  the  materials 
on  which  a  new  class  of  intuitive  powers  are  brought  to  bear. 
Our  faith-intuitions  have  no  real  objects  presented  to  them. 
“ I  hold,”  says  the  author,  “that  knowledge,  psychologically 
considered,  appears  first,  and  then  faith.  But  around  our 
original  cognitions  there  grows  and  clusters  a  body  of  primi¬ 
tive  beliefs,  which  goes  far  beyond  our  personal  knowledge.” 
Again  he  says  :  “  Faith  collects  round  our  observational  knowl¬ 
edge  and  even  around  the  conclusions  reached  by  inference.” 
His  examples  of  primitive  faiths  are  our  beliefs  in  the  infinity 
of  time  and  space,  and  in  infinity  as  an  attribute  of  the  nature 
of  the  Deity.  They  are  “beliefs  gathering  round  space,  time, 
and  the  infinite.” 

The  third  class  of  primitive  convictions  are  called  “primi¬ 
tive  judgments,”  and  have  for  their  objects  the  relations  of  the 
things  with  which  our  cognitions  are  conversant;  and  they 
arise  from  a  power  in  the  mind  to  anticipate,  to  the  extent  of 
looking  for,  certain  necessary  relations  among  objects,  such 
as  their  necessary  relations  in  space  and  time,  the  facts,  for 
example,  that  the  straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance  between 


332 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


two  points,  and  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space, 
and  the  like. 

Such  are  the  author’s  analysis  and  description  of  our 
primitive  convictions,  the  tests  of  which  are,  first,  their  self¬ 
evidence;  secondly,  and  dependent  on  this,  their  necessity; 
and  thirdly,  their  catholicity.  Self-evidence  is  the  fact  that  the 
conviction  exists  in  our  own  minds  and  exists  independently  of 
any  other  facts.  Necessity  of  belief  or  the  irresistible  charac¬ 
ter  of  the  conviction  follows,  according  to  the  author,  from 
this  self-evidence.  “  I  would  not,”  he  says,  “  ground  the  evi¬ 
dence  on  the  necessity  of  belief,  but  I  would  ascribe  the  irre¬ 
sistible  nature  of  the  conviction  to  the  self-evidence.  As  the 
necessity  flows  from  the  self-evidence,  so  it  may  become  a  test 
of  it,  and  a  test  not  difficult  of  application.”  Catholicity  is 
also  a  derivative  test,  and,  “when  conjoined  with  necessity, 
may  determine  very  readily  and  precisely  whether  a  conviction 
be  intuitive;”  but  all  these  tests  “apply  directly  only  to  indi¬ 
vidual  convictions.  To  the  generalized  expression  of  them 
the  tests  apply  only  mediately,  and  on  the  supposition  and 
condition  that  the  formulae  are  the  proper  expression  of  the 
spontaneous  perceptions.”  Originally  these  convictions  are 
laws  of  the  perceptive  faculties  guiding  their  action,  though 
not  determining  their  objects.  Their  objects  are  really  discov¬ 
ered,  and  the  conviction  is  primarily  held,  only  in  respect  to 
particular  perceptions  or  judgments.  Generalizations  are  then 
made,  but  they  are  generalizations  “  of  convictions  in  our  own 
minds,  each  of  which  carries  necessity  in  it.”  There  are, 
therefore,  according  to  the  author,  two  fundamentally  distinct 
kinds  of  generalization,  and  in  this  respect  his  doctrine  is  quite 
original.  Laws  or  general  facts  may  be  derived  from  an  expe¬ 
rience,  necessarily  limited,  of  facts  which  are  either  inferences 
more  or  less  perfectly  drawn  from  intuitive  perceptions,  or 
else  facts  at  which  no  power  of  the  mind  “looks”  intuitively, 
but  which  find  their  way  into  the  mind  by  the  force  of  repeat¬ 
ed  experiences.  These  are  laws  which  say  nothing  about  the 
possible;  they  only  testify  of  the  actual.  But  the  laws  which 
are  immediate  generalizations  from  intuitive  perceptions  and 
judgments  “are  of  a  higher  and  deeper  nature;  they  are  gen- 


McCOSH  ON  INTUITIONS . 


333 

eralizations  of  convictions  carrying  necessity  with  them,  and  a 
consequent  universality  in  their  very  nature.” 

This  is  briefly  our  author’s  system,  which  he  proceeds  to 
apply  to  the  various  problems  of  metaphysics,  such  as  the 
reality  of  cause  and  substance,  and  the  self,  and  the  external 
world.  In  ingenuity  this  theory  appears  to  us  to  exceed  any¬ 
thing  which  has  come  from  the  Scottish  school,  and  in  pliancy 
it  exceeds,  we  think,  any  system  which  has  ever  been  pro¬ 
pounded.  The  extremes  of  philosophy  are  avoided  by  it  with 
surprising  agility.  If  any  proposition  be  laid  down  as  uni¬ 
versally  true  from  which  logical  consequences  of  a  heterodox 
character  are  deducible,  this  system  affords  the  means  of  mod¬ 
ifying  the  proposition  without  impairing  in  any  measure  the 
evidence  of  its  universality,  since  the  infallible  powers  do  not 
testify  to  the  truth  of  any  formula  immediately,  but  only  in  so 
far  as  the  formula  represents  the  particular  decisions  of  the 
mind.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  “sceptic”  calls  in  question 
the  universality  of  any  truth  on  the  ground  that  the  mind  is 
cognizant  only  of  the  particular,  or  doubts  the  necessity  of  a 
belief  on  the  ground  that  all  experience  is  of  the  contingent, 
our  author  admits  his  grounds  but  denies  that  his  conclusions 
follow,  since  universality  and  necessity  do  not  come  from  the 
particulars  of  contingent  experience  as  such,  but  from  the  pow¬ 
ers  of  the  mind  looking  through  these  into  reality,  and  decid¬ 
ing  absolutely  only  in  regard  to  the  particulars. 

It  is  to  be  regretted,  however,  that  the  author  does  not  give 
us  a  more  explicit  account  of  what  he  means  by  such  expres¬ 
sions  as  “primitive  particular  convictions  carrying  necessity 
with  them,  and  a  consequent  universality  in  their  very  nature.” 
In  all  the  definitions  of  necessity  with  which  we  are  acquaint¬ 
ed,  we  have  nowhere  found  it  extended  beyond  the  facts  and 
the  logical  consequences  of  the  facts  in  which  it  is  supposed 
to  exist  primitively.  That  the  universal  does  not  follow  log¬ 
ically  from  the  particular  or  from  any  number  of  particulars, 
is  what  the  author  strenuously  maintains.  How,  then,  do  the 
particulars  carry  in  them  the  necessity  of  the  universal  ?  for 
this  is  what  we  understand  the  author’s  expressions  to  mean. 
How  unless  it  be  that  the  particulars  are  known  simply  as 


334 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


instances  of  the  universal,  the  truth  of  which  we  possess  as  an 
independent  knowledge  ?  But  such  an  independent  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  universal  the  author  as  strenuously  denies.  The 
universal  comes  to  consciousness,  he  thinks,  only  through  the 
particulars,  yet  not  by  the  way  of  suggestion  or  an  awakening 
of  a  dormant  truth,  but  rather  as  a  fact  which  the  particular 
contains  in  itself.  It  is  not,  according  to  the  author,  from  the 
objects  of  intuition  on  one  hand,  nor  from  the  powers  of  intu¬ 
ition  on  the  other,  that  the  truth  of  a  universal  proposition 
becomes  known.  This  is  obtained  by  the  generalization  of 
particular  decisions  of  the  mind.  In  the  general  maxim  the 
mind  ^-cognizes  what  it  has  previously  cognized  in  each  and 
every  one  of  the  particular  cases.  The  underived  necessity 
of  the  particular  conviction  is  somehow  translated  into  the 
universal  truth  of  the  general  maxim. 

The  author  probably  attaches  to  the  word  “necessity”  a 
peculiar  sense,  as  something  more  than  mere  cogency  of  be¬ 
lief,  though  he  nowhere  defines  it  in  any  other  signification. 
There  is  a  real  and  important  logical  distinction  involved  in 
this  word,  which  renders  the  author’s  theory  intelligible  enough, 
though  quite  a  different  doctrine  from  what  he  intends  to  set 
forth.  There  is  a  distinction  in  the  logical  use  of  the  word 
necessity,  as  opposed  to  contingency,  which  relates  not  to  the 
cogency  of  the  belief  with  which  a  fact  is  held,  but  to  the 
connection  of  the  fact  itself  with  other  facts  in  our  experience. 
When  we  say  that  “  anything  must  be  or  must  be  so  and  so,” 
we  mean  to  express  something  different  from  the  statement 
that  “  this  thing  is  or  is  so  and  so ;  ”  yet  this  difference  does 
not  refer  to  the  originality,  simplicity,  or  cogency  of  our  belief 
in  the  statement.  The  copulas  must  be  and  ccuinot  be  involve 
in  them  universal  propositions,  though  they  connect  only  indi¬ 
vidual  or  particular  terms.  They  mean  that  the  truth  they 
predicate  is  unconditional — is  independent  of  any  other  facts; 
that  there  exists  nothing  to  prevent  the  thing  from  being,  or 
being  so  and  so;  or  that  the  particular  fact  does  not  de¬ 
pend  on  any  conditions  which  we  can  suppose  from  the  evi¬ 
dence  of  experience  to  be  variable.  From  the  particular 
proposition,  “  These  two  straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space,” 


McCOSH  ON  INTUITIONS. 


335 


may  be  deduced,  through  the  universality  implied  in  the  cop¬ 
ula,  the  universal  proposition,  “No  two  straight  lines  can  in¬ 
close  a  space.”  For  “cannot”  here  means  that  there  are  no 
conditions,  or  supposable  variations  of  conditions,  which  will 
make  a  closed  figure  of  these  two  lines.  But  the  evidence  on 
which  such  a  fact  rests  will  be  equally  good  for  any  other  two 
straight  lines,  since  a  change  from  these  to  another  pair  will 
not  affect  the  conditions  on  which  the  truth  of  the  particular 
case  depends.  Hence,  “no  pair  of  straight  lines  can  inclose  a 
space.”  This  follows  from  the  unconditionalness  of  a  particu¬ 
lar  fact — not  from  the  cogency  of  our  belief  in  it.  This  co¬ 
gency  is  quite  another  affair. 

By  overlooking  the  universal,  which  is  implied  in  an  un¬ 
conditional,  particular  proposition,  our  author  has  sought  for 
the  origin  of  the  corresponding  explicit  universal  in  the  char¬ 
acter  of  our  particular  convictions  as  mental  acts ;  whereas 
this  character  of  universality  really  depends  on  the  relations 
of  particular  facts  to  our  experiences  generally.  We,  there¬ 
fore,  come  back  to  the  difficulty,  still  unsolved,  as  to  how  we 
derive  universality  from  a  limited  experience.  Upon  this  Dr. 
McCosh  lays  down  the  usual  dictum  of  his  school.  He  says 
that  “a  very  wide  and  uniform  experience  would  justify  a 
general  expectation  but  not  a  necessary  conviction ;  and  this 
experience  is  liable  to  be  disturbed  at  any  time  by  a  new 
occurrence  inconsistent  with  what  has  been  previously  known 
to  us.”  But  whence  this  liability  ?  On  what  evidence  is  it 
supposed  ?  Are  we  informed  of  it  by  an  intuition  or  by 
experience  ?  If  by  the  former,  then  we  have  intuitions  about 
other  generalizations  than  universal  ones,  which  is  contrary  to 
our  author’s  theory.  If  by  the  latter,  then  our  experience  is 
not  uniform,  which  is  contrary  to  his  special  hypothesis.  As 
he,  therefore,  shuts  himself  off  from  both  these  sources  of  in¬ 
formation  on  the  subject,  we  are  left  no  alternative  but  to  con* 
elude  that  his  statement  about  the  liability  of  our  uniform 
experiences  to  be  disturbed  is  wholly  gratuitous  and  a  begging 
of  the  question.  Or  perhaps  he  means  that  propositions 
which  we  do  not  feel  obliged  to  believe,  though  not  contra¬ 
dicted  in  our  experience,  should  yet,  from  their  analogy  with 


336 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


others  which  are  occasionally  contradicted,  be  regarded  as 
liable  to  exception.  But  again  we  demand,  Whence  is  the 
force  of  this  analogy  ?  What  right  have  we  to  draw  such  a 
conclusion  ?  Is  it  not  also  a  virtual  begging  of  the  question? 
For,  suppose  it  true,  what  the  opposite  school  of  philosophy 
teach,  that  there  exist  certain  universal  facts,  not  born  into 
the  mind  either  as  innate  ideas  or  as  laws  of  its  faculties, 
)ut  existing  as  the  universal  circumstances  into  which  the 
nind  is  born.  There  could  be  no  exceptions  to  the  uniformity 
)f  our  experience  of  such  facts,  even  if  there  were  no  ne¬ 
cessity  in  our  convictions  of  them;  and  although,  as  our 
author’s  school  believe,  we  always  do  have  necessary  convic¬ 
tions  of  such  facts  and  of  no  others,  the  doctrine  must  rest, 
after  all,  on  the  evidence  of  induction — on  the  observation 
that  the  mark,  of  necessity  always  does  attend  uncontradicted 
truths  and  no  others.  But  the  history  of  science  as  well  as 
the  discussions  of  philosophy  contradict  this  induction. 
“There  was  a  time,”  says  Mr.  Mill,  “when  men  of  the 
most  cultivated  intellects  and  the  most  emancipated  from  the 
dominion  of  early  prejudice,  would  not  credit  the  existence 
of  antipodes.”  Our  author,  after  quoting  this  example,  ob¬ 
serves  :  “  I  acknowledge  that  the  tests  of  intuition  have  often 
been  loosely  stated,  and  that  they  have  also  been  illegitimately 
applied,  just  as  the  laws  of  derivative  logic  have  been.  But 
they  have  seldom  or  never  been  put  in  the  ambiguous  form  in 
which  Mr.  Mill  understands  them,  and  it  is  only  in  such  a 
shape  that  they  could  ever  be  supposed  to  cover  such  beliefs 
as  the  rejection  of  the  rotundity  of  the  earth.  ...  It  is  not 
the  power  of  conception,  in  the  sense  either  of  phantasm 
or  notion,  that  should  be  used  as  a  test,  but  it  is  self-evidence 
with  necessity.”  He  then  proceeds  to  understate  the  facts 
of  the  case  thus:  “There  was  a  time  when  even  educated 
men  felt  a  difficulty  in  conceiving  the  antipodes,  because  it 
seemed  contrary  not  to  intuition  but  to  their  limited  experi¬ 
ence;  but  surely  no  one  knowing  anything  of  philosophy 
or  of  what  he  was  speaking  would  have  maintained,  at  any 
time,  that  it  was  self-evident  that  the  earth  could  not  be 
round.”  On  this  we  have  to  observe,  in  the  first  place,  that 


Me  COSH  ON  INTUITIONS. 


337 


the  difficulty  of  conceiving  the  antipodes  was  not,  as  the 
author  appears  to  think,  a  difficulty  of  conceiving  the  ro¬ 
tundity  of  the  earth,  but  a  difficulty  of  conceiving  men  stand¬ 
ing  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  round  earth,  without  having 
their  feet  stuck  on,  like  flies  to  a  ceiling,  and  this  difficulty 
was  such  that  these  philosophers  could  not  be  made  to  credit 
its  possibility ;  in  other  words,  they  had  one  of  Dr.  McCosh’s 
intuitions  on  the  matter.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  who  follows 
the  Scottish  school  in  positing  belief  as  a  valid  and  ultimate 
test  of  the  truths  of  universals,  attempts  to  explain  away  this 
historical  example  by  limiting  the  test  to  what  is  simple  and 
“  undecomposable,”  and  he  supposes  the  conception  of  the 
antipodes  to  have  been  difficult  or  impossible  to  the  ancients, 
and  the  fact  to  have  been  incredible,  on  account  of  the  com¬ 
plexity  of  the  conception.  But  we  suspect  the  case  to  have 
been  just  the  reverse  of  this.  The  antipodes  were  incredible 
to  the  ancients  because  they  conceived  the  fact  as  a  simple  and 
unconditional  one,  and  in  contradiction  of  the  equally  simple 
and  unconditional  fact  of  their  own  standing  on  the  earth. 
And  it  is  because  we  in  modern  times  are  able  to  resolve  both 
facts  into  the  conditions  on  which  they  depend  that  they  are 
seen  not  to  be  contradictory.  So  long  as  “down”  was  con¬ 
ceived  as  an  absolute  direction  in  the  universe,  dependent  on 
nothing  but  its  own  nature,  so  long  were  the  antipodes  in¬ 
credible  and  stood  in  contradiction  of  as  simple,  original,  and 
necessary  a  belief  as  “  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a 
space.”  In  short,  the  ancients  had  in  this  case  all  the  tests 
which  the  Scottish  school  apply  as  ultimate  in  the  ascertain¬ 
ment  of  truth. 

But  what  can  be  more  ultimate  ?  What  other  tests  are 
there  ?  this  school  demand.  Perhaps  there  are  no  tests  of  a 
general  character,  or  of  simple  and  easy  application;  but, 
without  awaiting  an  answer,  this  s*chool  describe  all  those 
who  oppose  them  as  “sceptics,”  deniers  of  truth;  whereas 
what  the  so-called  “sceptics,”  “idealists,”  and  “sensationalists” 
deny  is  only  the  validity  of  these  tests  as  ultimate  ones. 
What  nobody  doubts  or  calls  in  question,  that,  of  course, 
nobody  wants  a  test  for,  though  it  may  be  a  useful  and  in- 
15 


338 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


structive  exercise  in  philosophy  to  generalize  the  conditions 
of  ultimate  credibility.  But  such  conditions  are  illegitimately 
used  as  an  appeal  from  the  doubts  or  questions  of  philosophy. 
The  Scottish  school,  half  aware  of  this,  commonly  describe 
the  opinions  and  doubts  from  which  they  appeal  to  intuition 
and  common  sense  as  either  insincere  or  as  positively  wicked, 
and  our  author,  in  particular,  regards  all  the  errors  and  mis¬ 
takes  of  philosophers  as  coming  from  a  perverse  will,  from 
their  not  yielding  to  their  intuitive,  heaven-born  convictions. 
He  describes  his  opponents  as  “opponents  of  intuitive  truth,” 
whereas  they  only  oppose  the  theory  which  regards  our  sim¬ 
plest  and  most  certain  convictions  as  derived  from  a  different 
source  from  that  which  assures  us  of  all  else  that  we  know, 
namely,  our  experience  of  the  world  and  of  our  own  thoughts. 
The  “sceptic ”  does  not  deny  that  our  knowledges  are  pro¬ 
duced  according  to  laws  which  may  be  discovered  in  them  by 
comparison  and  generalization,  and  his  doubts  and  questions 
about  metaphysical  truths,  such  as  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect  and  the  existence  of  the  external  world,  are  doubts  and 
questions,  not  about  the  reality  of  these  knowledges,  but 
about  the  kind  of  reality  they  have,  and  this  must  be  deter¬ 
mined,  he  thinks,  by  the  nature  of  the  evidence  on  which 
they  rest. 

The  “sceptic”  does  not  deny  that  many  of  his  beliefs  are 
unconditional  or  necessary.  He  only  denies  that  this  quality 
is  a  proof  of  their  simplicity  or  originality,  and  on  this  ac¬ 
count  he  doubtless  holds  to  them  somewhat  less  willfully.  By 
necessity  he  means  unconditionalness,  or  that  the  fact  is  inde¬ 
pendent  of  all  other  known  facts  and  conditions.  Whatever 
the  word  necessity  means  more  than  this,  comes,  he  thinks, 
from  a  rhetorical  fervor  of  assertion;  as  if  one  should  say, 
“This  must  be  so,”  meaning  that  he  is  determined  that  it  shall 
be  so.  This  sort  of  self-determination  in  their  convictions 
the  Scottish  school  doubtless  have,  and  they  are  probably 
correct  in  not  ascribing  it  to  the  evidence  of  experience ;  but 
then  they  are  wrong  in  thinking  that  it  comes  from  the  reason 
since,  in  fact,  its  real  origin  is  in  the  will. 

The  appeal  from  the  “sceptic’s”  questions  to  common  sense 


McCOSH  ON  INTUITIONS. 


339 


is  inept  in  two  important  particulars.  In  the  first  place,  the 
appeal  is  an  ignoratio  elenchi ,  for  the  questions  are  not  ques¬ 
tions  of  facts  but  questions  of  their  philosophical  explanations  : 
questions  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  facts  as  knowledges. 
These  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  cogency  or  simplicity 
of  our  beliefs,  except  to  explain  them.  When  the  “sceptic” 
asks  why  some  beliefs  are  so  much  more  cogent  than  others, 
he  is  accused  by  this  school  of  doubting  whether  they  really 
are  so,  and  he  is  referred  for  an  explanation  to  the  very  facts 
which  he  seeks  to  explain.  But,  in  the  second  place,  no  dis¬ 
cussion  is  legitimate  which  appeals  to  an  oracle  not  acknowl¬ 
edged  by  both  parties.  The  proper  appeal  in  all  disputes 
is  to  common  principles  explicitly  announced  and  understood 
in  the  same  sense  by  both  disputants.  It  is  common,  indeed, 
in  physical  investigations  to  speak  of  an  appeal  to  experiment 
or  to  observation;  still,  by  this  is  meant,  not  an  appeal  from 
anybody’s  decision  or  opinion,  but  from  everybody’s  ignorance 
of  the  facts  of  the  case.  The  facts  in  philosophy  are  so  noto¬ 
rious  that  this  sort  of  appeal  is  not  required.  What  is  sought 
by  the  so-called  “sceptic”  is  the  nature  of  the  fact,  its  ex¬ 
planation;  and  he  is  not  deterred  from  the  inquiry  by  the 
seeming  simplicity  of  the  fact,  but  proceeds,  like  the  astron¬ 
omer,  and  the  physicist,  and  the  naturalist,  by  framing  and 
verifying  hypotheses  to  reduce  the  simple  seeming  to  its  sim¬ 
pler  reality.  In  this  the  idealist  does  not  deny  that  there 
is  an  existence  properly  enough  called  the  external  world,  but 
he  wishes  to  ascertain  the  nature  of  this  reality  by  studying 
what  the  notion  of  externality  really  implies ;  what  are  the 
circumstances  attending  its  rise  in  our  thoughts,  and  its  proba¬ 
ble  growth  in  our  experience.  In  this  research  he  does  not 
forget  that  all  explanation  ultimately  rests  on  the  inexplicable  ; 
that  “  there  is  no  appeal  from  our  faculties  generally ;  ”  he 
only  denies  that  the  present  simplicity  of  a  fact  in  our 
thoughts  is  a  test  of  its  primitive  simplicity  in  the  growth 
of  the  mind.  For  such  a  test  would  have  deterred  the  as¬ 
tronomer  from  questioning  the  Ptolemaic  system  and  the 
stability  of  the  earth,  or  the  physicist  from  calling  in  question 
nature’s  abhorrence  of  a  vacuum. 


340 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


The  oracular  deliverances  of  consciousness,  even  when  con 
*  suited  by  the  most  approved  maxims  of  interrogation,  cannot 
present  a  fact  in  the  isolated,  untheoretical  form  which  criti¬ 
cism  and  scientific  investigation  demand.  Philosophers  are 
not  the  only  theorizers.  The  vulgar,  and  the  philosophei 
himself  as  one  of  them,  have  certain  theoretical  prepossessions, 
natural  explanations  and  classifications  of  the  phenomena 
which  are  habitually  brought  to  their  notice — such  as  the 
apparent  movements  of  the  heavens,  and  the  axioms  of  hourly 
experience.  How  are  these  natural  theories  to  be  eliminated  ? 
How  unless  by  criticism — by  just  such  criticisms  as  those 
of- the  great  “sceptic”  Hume?  But  while  the  criticisms  of 
Hume  awoke  the  philosopher  of  Konigsberg  from  his  “dog¬ 
matic  slumber,”  and  gave  rise  to  the  greatest  philosophical 
movement  of  modern  times,  it  appeared  to  affect  the  “scep¬ 
tic’s”  own  countrymen  only  to  plunge  them  into  a  profound 
dogmatic  coma.  The  “sceptic”  seemed  to  these  philosophers 
to  deny  truth  itself,  and  to  demand  a  proof  for  everything. 
“There  are  truths,”  says  our  author,  “above  probation,  but 
there  are  none  above  examination,  and  the  truths  above  proof 
are  those  which  bear  inspection  the  best.”  This  is  the  key  to 
the  whole  Scottish  method.  The  inspection  of  truths  as  to 
their  credibility  seems  to  these  thinkers  to  be  the  chief  busi¬ 
ness  of  philosophy.  As  if  truths  were  on  trial  for  their  lives ! 
As  if  the  “sceptic”  desired  worse  of  them  than  their  better 
acquaintance ! 

An  appeal  to  an  oracle  silences  but  does  not  settle  disputes. 
Principles  to  start  from  must  be  those  for  which  no  explana¬ 
tion  is  supposable.  The  existence  of  undisputed  and  indis¬ 
putable  facts  is  denied  by  no  philosopher,  and  every  true 
philosopher  seeks  for  such  facts;  the  “idealists”  and  the 
“sensationalists”  as  well  as  the  rest.  But  idealism  was  ever  a 
stumbling-block  to  the  Scottish  school,  so  much  so  that  their 
intuitions  seem  to  spring  directly  from  an  innate  inability  in 
the  thinkers  of  that  nation  to  understand  this  doctrine.  They 
appear  unable  to  distinguish  between  questions  concerning 
the  origin  of  an  idea  and  a  doubt  of  its  reality.  It  is  much 
as  if  a  Ptolemaic  astronomer  should  accuse  a  Copernican 


Me  COSH  ON  INTUITIONS. 


341 


of  denying  or  ignoring  the  visible  changes  in  the  aspects 
of  the  heavens. 

The  “sceptic”  does  not  doubt  peremptorily,  but  always  for 
cause.  He  does  not  profess  to  doubt  realities  or  principles, 
but  only  whether  certain  truths  ar-e  principles  or  simple  cog¬ 
nitions,  and  whether  they  are  cognitions  having  the  kind  of 
reality  they  are  vulgarly  supposed  to  have.  There  would  be 
a  sort  of  grim  humor  in  our  author’s  discussion  of  “what  are 
we  to  do  to  the  sceptic  ?  ”  and  what  we  should  and  what  we 
should  not  do  for  him,  were  it  not  that  the  discussion  is  too 
obviously  a  serious  one.  The  author  does  not  see  that  what 
we  ought  to  do  is  to  try  to  understand  the  “sceptic,”  and 
what  we  ought  not  to  do  is  to  misrepresent  him. 

“  Precipitate  and  incorrect  as  Hume’s  conclusion  was  ”  con¬ 
cerning  the  possibility  of  a  science  of  metaphysics,  “yet,” 
says  Kant,  “  it  was  at  least  founded  on  investigation,  and  this 
investigation  was  well  worthy  that  all  the  best  intellects  of  his 
time  should  have  united  successfully  to  solve  the  problem,  and, 
if  possible,  in  the  temper  in  which  he  proposed  it,  for  from 
this  a  total  reform  of  the  science  must  soon  have  arisen. 
Only  the  unpropitious  fate  of  his  metaphysic  would  have  it 
that  it  should  be  understood  by  none.  One  cannot  without  a 
certain  feeling  of  pain  see  how  utterly  his  adversaries,  Reid, 
Oswald,  Beattie,  and  later  Priestly  also,  missed  the  point  of 
his  problem.  By  continually  taking  for  granted  just  what  he 
doubted,  but  on  the  other  hand  proving  with  vehemence, 
and,  what  is  more,  with  great  indecorum,  what  it  never  came 
into  his  head  to  doubt,  they  so  mistook  his  hint  towards  im¬ 
provement  that  everything  remained  in  the  old  state,  as  though 
nothing  had  happened.” — [. Prolegomena  to  every  Future  Meta- 
physic  which  can  he  put  forth  as  a  science.  Introduction.] 

We  will  only  add  that  our  author  has  not  improved  upon 
his  predecessors. 


MASSON’S  RECENT  BRITISH  PHILOSOPHY.* 


With  the  true  metaphysician  the  real  motive  of  his  pursuit 
is,  of  course,  his  belief  in  its  success  and  in  the  value  of  the 
truths,  as  such,  which  he  aims  to  establish.  But,  in  addition 
to  this  motive,  many  minds  discover  a  certain  dignity  and  ab¬ 
solute  worth  in  the  pursuit  itself — in  the  exercise  of  powers 
which,  though  they  should  fail  of  their  end,  are  regarded  as 
the  noblest  and  the  most  distinctive  of  the  tendencies  native  to 
the  human  mind.  To  this  somewhat  sentimental  view  of  the 
value  of  metaphysical  studies,  Sir  William  Hamilton  gave  his 
powerful  support,  and  his  disciple,  Mr.  Masson,  urges  it  in 
apology  for  his  Review,  t  The  “greatest  and  most  character¬ 
istic  merit  of  Sir  William  Hamilton  among  his  contemporaries 
consisted,”  according  to  Mr.  Masson,  “in  his  having  been, 
while  he  lived,  the  most  ardent  and  impassioned  devotee  of 
the  useless  within  Great  Britain.”  Mr.  Masson  does  not  tell 
us  whether  Hamilton  has  since  his  death  been  surpassed  in 
this  excellence;  but  on  no  point  in  metaphysics  does  Mr.  Mas¬ 
son  himself  take  a  more  decided  stand  than  on  this  its  claim 
to  be  a  very  ennobling  pursuit.  Of  a  nation  which  should 
cease  to  care  for  metaphysics,  he  says  that  it  “  has  the  mark  of 
the  beast  upon  it,  and  is  going  the  way  of  all  brutality.” 

On  more  specific  points  of  metaphysical  doctrine,  Mr.  Mas¬ 
son’s  opinions  are  not  so  distinctly  set  forth.  He  manifests, 
however,  a  certain  affection  for  transcendentalism,  and  a  confi¬ 
dence  that  there  is  something  in  it.  But  his  aim  in  this  volume 
is  not  so  much  to  set  forth  his  own  opinions  as  to  sketch  the 
relations  of  the  different  philosophical  systems  that  have  been 


*  From  The  Nation,  November  15,  1866. 

t  “Recent  British  Philosophy:  A  Review,  with  criticisms;  including  some  comments 
on  Mr.  Mill’s  answer  to  Sir  William  Hamilton.  By  David  Masson.”  New  York:  1866 


MASSON’S  RECENT  BRITISH  PHILOSOPHY. 


343 


most  influential  in  Great  Britain  during  the  past  thirty  years, 
with  reference  chiefly  to  the  writings  of  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
Mr.  Mill,  and  Mr.  Carlyle. 

For  this  purpose  he  lays  down,  first,  a  scheme  for  the  classi¬ 
fication  of  possible  metaphysical  opinions,  following  Sir  Wil¬ 
liam  Hamilton’s  method,  and,  for  the  most  part,  adopting 
Hamilton’s  divisions  and  nomenclature.  An  admiring  imitator 
of  Hamilton’s  emphatic  style,  he  divides  and  defines  with  a 
firmness,  rather  than  a  fineness,  of  discrimination.  Starting  with 
an  a  priori  scheme  of  possible  metaphysical  opinions,  he  tries 
the  doctrines  of  his  three  philosophers  by  it,  and  assigns  them 
to  their  appropriate  classes.  A  convenient  original  feature  in 
his  scheme  enables  him  to  accomplish  this  with  considerable 
success.  He  distinguishes  three  forms  of  metaphysical  belief, 
or  three  generic  grounds  of  difference  in  philosophical  opinion. 
A  philosopher’s  opinions  may  belong  to  his  “psychological 
theory,”  to  his  “cosmological  conception,”  or  to  his  “ontolog¬ 
ical  faith.”  If  his  opinion  is  given  in  answer  to  the  question, 
“  Is  any  portion  of  our  knowledge  of  a  different  origin  from 
the  rest,  and  of  a  different  degree  of  validity  in  consequence 
of  that  different  origin  ?  ”  or  “  Are  there  any  notions,  princi¬ 
ples,  or  elements  in  our  minds  which  could  never  have  been 
fabricated  out  of  any  amount  of  experience,  but  must  have 
been  bedded  in  the  very  structure  of  the  mind  itself?” — then 
his  opinion  will  be  the  philosopher’s  “psychological  theory,” 
and  he  will  be  an  “empiricist”  or  a  “transcendentalist,”  accord¬ 
ing  as  he  answers  these  questions  in  the  negative  or  affirmative. 

The  most  curious  and  original  part  of  Mr.  Masson’s  scheme 
is  the  doctrine  that  the  philosopher’s  “cosmological  concep¬ 
tion”  may  be  quite  independent  of  his  psychological  theory;” 
that,  in  fact,  any  one  may  have  a  very  distinct  “cosmological 
conception”  without  any  “psychological  theory”  at  all.  “A 
psychological  theory”  is  a  learned  luxury,  but  every  one  has 
some  sort  of  “  cosmological  conception  ”  which  is  bodied  forth 
in  his  sensuous  image  of  the  universe  as  a  whole,  and  made 
up  of  his  ideas  of  religion  and  history  and  the  eternal  verities 
of  the  world. 

Philosophers  are  fundamentally  divided,  as  to  their  “  cosmo 


344 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


logical  conceptions,”  into  realists  and  idealists,  and  subdivided 
into  “materialistic  realists”  and  “dualistic  realists;”  or  “nat¬ 
ural  realists,”  on  one  hand,  and  into  “constructive  idealists” 
and  “pure  idealists,”  on  the  other.  These  four  subdivisions 
are  flanked  by  two  extreme  classes  of  opinion :  nihilism  or 
non-substantialism,  on  one  hand,  and  pantheism  or  the  “abso¬ 
lute  identity”  doctrine,  on  the  other.  These  extreme  classes 
involve,  however,  ontological  considerations,  and  depend  on 
the  third  generic  ground  of  difference  in  philosophical  opinion 
— on  the  philosopher’s  “ontological  faith.” 

Ontology  means  the  science  of  the  supernatural,  of  the 
non-phenomenal.  Can  there  be  such  a  science  ?  This  ques¬ 
tion  admits,  according  to  Mr.  Masson,  of  a  division  into  two : 
“  Is  there  a  supernatural,  and  can  the  supernatural  be  known  ?  ” 
By  the  great  majority  of  philosophers  these  questions  are 
answered  in  the  order  in  which  Mr.  Masson  puts  them :  the 
first  in  the  affirmative  and  the  second  in  the  negative ;  though 
it  is  a  puzzle  to  the  sceptic  to  understand  how  men  can  con¬ 
fess  a  belief  in  anything  of  which  they  profess  themselves 
utterly  ignorant.  But  Mr.  Masson  offers  an  ingenious  ex¬ 
planation.  “  Ontological  faith,”  when  it  exists,  depends  not 
on  evidence  of  any  kind — the  word  faith  connotes  that — but 
on  the  existence  in  the  philosopher  of  what  Mr.  Masson  calls, 
euphemistically,  “the  ontological  passion,”  “the  rage  of  on¬ 
tology,”  or  “the  sentiment  of  ontology.”  “What  has  genius 
been,”  he  exclaims,  “what  has  religious  propagandism  been, 
but  a  metaphysical  drunkenness  ?  ”  In  its  manifestation  this 
passion  appears  to  us  very  nearly  akin  to  what,  in  the  modern 
sense  of  the  word,  is  expressed  by  “dogmatism.”  A  dogma¬ 
tist  is  one  who  is  fond  of  strong  assertions,  who  concludes 
with  his  will,  and  reaches  his  conclusion  by  going  to  it  when 
he  finds  no  power,  natural  or  supernatural,  by  which  the 
mountain  can  be  forced  to  come  to  him.  But  Mr.  Masson 
appears  innocently  unconscious  of  this  synonym. 

By  the  help  of  the  “ontological  passion”  and  his  scheme 
of  classification  he  discovers  the  relations  between  the  opin¬ 
ions  of  his  three  philosophers,  especially  between  those  of 
Hamilton  and  Mill,  “one  of  whom  may  be  described  as  a 


MASSON'S  RECENT  BRITISH  PHILOSOPHY.  343 

transcendental  natural  realist,  forswearing  speculative  ontol¬ 
ogy,  but  with  much  of  the  ontological  passion  in  his  temper ; 
and  the  other  as  an  empirical  idealist,  also  repudiating  on¬ 
tology,  but  doing  so  with  the  ease  of  one  in  whom  the  on¬ 
tological  feeling  was  at  any  rate  suppressed  or  languid.” 

The  earlier  chapters  of  Mr.  Masson’s  book,  which  had  gone 
to  press  before  the  publication  of  Mill’s  “Examination  of 
Hamilton,”  anticipate  two  of  Mr.  Mill’s  principal  criticisms. 
The  apparent  discrepancy  between  Hamilton’s  philosophy 
of  the  conditioned,  or  doctrine  of  relative  knowledge,  and  his 
natural  realism,  or  doctrine  of  the  immediate  perception  of 
the  primary  qualities  of  matter,  is  explained  by  Mr.  Masson 
by  referring  the  former  to  Hamilton’s  ontological  doctrine, 
and  the  latter  to  his  “cosmological  conception;”  and  the 
apparent  inconsistency  of  Hamilton’s  philosophy  of  the  con¬ 
ditioned  with  his  theological  positions  is  explained,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  the  degree  to  which  he  was  possessed  with  the  “on¬ 
tological  passion.” 

“Transcendental  natural  realism  in  Hamilton,  announcing 
itself  as  anti-ontological  but  with  strong  theological  sympa¬ 
thies,  and  empirical,  constructive  idealism  in  Mill,  also  an¬ 
nouncing  itself  as  anti-ontological,  but  consenting  to  leave  the 
main  theological  questions  open  on  pretty  strict  conditions — 
such,”  it  seems  to  Mr.  Masson,  “were  the  two  philosophical 
angels  that  began  to  contend  formally  for  the  soul  of  Britain 
about  thifty  years  ago,  and  that  are  still  contending  for  as 
much  of  it  as  has  not  in  the  mean  time  transported  itself 
beyond  the  reach  of  either.”  Whether  any  of  it  has  done  so, 
and  how  much,  and  where  it  has  gone,  are  matters  which  Mr. 
Masson  proceeds  to  discuss  in  his  chapter  on  “the  effects 
of  recent  scientific  conceptions  on  philosophy.”  Having  in 
this  chapter  got  off  the  scaffolding  of  his  classification,  he 
appears  to  us  to  have  fallen  into  the  most  bewildering  confu¬ 
sion.  That  part  of  the  soul  of  Britain  which  appears  to  him 
to  have  got  beyond  the  reach  of  traditional  differences  in 
philosophy,  has  done  so,  it  seems  to  us,  by  confounding  them 
with  the  vaguer  scientific  speculations  which,  according  to 
Mr.  Masson,  have  wrought  this  great  change. 


34-6 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


The  idea  that  the  world  existed  for  innumerable  ages  with* 
out  sentient  life;  that  this  life  was  gradually  developed  until 
it  appeared  in  the  full  splendor  of  the  human  soul;  that  the 
earth  and  its  history  are  but  accidents  in  a  grander  cosmos, 
and  that  it  and  the  cosmos  are  destined  to  an  ultimate  and 
universal  collapse,  to  be  refunded  into  a  new  homogeneous 
nebula,  and  to  furnish  elements  to  a  new  creation — this  evolu¬ 
tion  from  nebula,  and  this  dissolution  into  nebula,  repeated 
without  end,  making  sentient  life,  the  animal  nature,  and  the 
human  mind  only  phases  of  a  continuous  evolution — such 
ideas,  our  author  thinks,  make  metaphysics  stand  aghast. 
What  becomes  of  a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  of  transcendental¬ 
ism  and  empiricism,  when  everything  is  a  product  and  at  the 
same  time  a  factor;  when  nothing  is  primordial  but  nebula, 

and  nebula  neither  matter  nor  mind,  but  the  undifferentiated 

• 

root  of  both  ?  But  Mr.  Masson’s  faith  in  transcendentalism, 
as  he  understands  it,  is  proof  against  this  new  phase  of 
thought.  He  thinks  that  under  these  new  scientific  concep¬ 
tions  transcendentalism  and  empiricism  go  a  neck-and-neck 
race  back  through  the  ages,  but  that  transcendentalism  will 
get  ahead  at  the  nebula. 

Now,  in  all  this  Mr.  Masson  has  confused  the  philosophical 
dogma  of  an  a  priori  determination  of  knowledge  with  the 
doctrine  of  heredity,  the  doctrine,  to  wit,  that  dispositions, 
tendencies  to  action,  and  perhaps,  also,  certain  elements  of 
knowledge,  are  derived  by  birth  from  the  characters  and 
mental  powers  of  progenitors.  He  explicitly  identifies  the 
two  by  affirming  that  the  doctrine  of  heredity  is  inconsistent 
with  empiricism  in  philosophy.  For  this  confusion  he  is 
probably  indebted  to  Mr.  Spencer,  to  whom  the  world  owes 
the  introduction  in  philosophy  of  these  confounding  scientific 
conceptions.  Mr.  Spencer  and  Mr.  Masson  do  not  appear  to 
be  aware  that,  by  “an  a  priori  ground  of  knowledge,”  no 
reference  is  meant  in  philosophy  to  physical  or  physiological 
antecedency  or  causation,  but  only  to  the  logical  grounds 
of  belief,  or  to  the  evidence  of  certain  general  propositions. 
The  principal  question  of  philosophy  is,  whether  any  general 
truth  is  known  by  any  mind  except  in  consequence — the 


MASSON'S  RECENT  BRITISH  PHILOSOPHY.  347 

evidential  consequence — of  particular  experiences,  or  else  de¬ 
ductively.  If  it  could  be  made  out  that  certain  general 
elements  of  knowledge  are  born  in  any  mind  in  consequence 
of  particular  experiences  in  its  progenitors,  this  would  still  be 
empiricism,  and  Mr.  Spencer  therefore  professes  empiricism, 
though  he  does  not  appear  to  know  it.  For  transcendentalism 
maintains  that  certain  so-called  a  priori  elements  of  knowl¬ 
edge  or  general  truths  could  not  be  vouched  for  by  any 
amount  of  particular  experience;  and  it  is  non-essential 
whether  this  experience  be  in  the  offspring  or  in  its  pro¬ 
genitors,  even  back  to  the  nebula.  Mr.  Spencer  and  Mr. 
Masson  have,  therefore,  got  beyond  the  reach  of  “the  two 
philosophical  angels  ”  only  by  getting  confused  by  their  scien¬ 
tific  conceptions. 

These  nebulous  conceptions  have  also  dimmed  Mr.  Mas¬ 
son’s  vision  of  another  metaphysical  doctrine,  that  of  the 
cosmothetic  idealists,  as  Hamilton  called  them,  or,  as  Mr. 
Masson  prefers  to  call  them,  the  constructive  idealists.  Either 
he  was  misled  by  his  own  terminology,  or  for  some  other 
reason,  he  has  assumed  that  the  idealism  of  the  majority 
of  philosophers,  including  Mr.  Mill,  presupposed  the  existence 
of  a  perceiving  mind  to  constitute  a  cosmos.  To  constitute  a 
conceived  cosmos,  or  the  cosmos  as  known ,  it  is  undoubtedly 
necessary  that  a  mind  should  exist  to  know  it,  or  to  be  aware 
of  its  effects  upon  mind ;  but  that  the  contemplation  of  such 
a  mind  is  necessary  to  the  absolute  existence  of  a  cosmos  can 
be  inferred  from  nothing  in  the  doctrine  of  idealism ;  and  it  is 
only  inferable,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  from  the  connotation 
of  the  name  which  Mr.  Masson  gives  to  the  more  common 
form  of  the  doctrine — from  the  name  constructive  idealism. 
He  is  puzzled  to  conceive  how,  on  the  idealist’s  theory,  the 
world  could  have  had  a  progress  and  a  history  prior  to  its 
development  of  a  perceiving  mind,  except,  perhaps,  in  the 
mind  of  its  Creator,  who  might  be  supposed  to  “  have  con¬ 
tinued  the  necessary  contemplation.” 

We  had  before  supposed  that  the  scientific  conceptions, 
which  appear  to  have  befogged  our  author,  had  not  attained 
to  such  a  degree  of  nebulosity  as  to  represent  the  universe  at 


34^ 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


any  time  as  of  a  nature  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  a 
perceiving  mind,  however  unfit  it  may  have  been  for  the 
sustenance  of  the  animal  body  with  its  perceptive  organs ; 
and  we  imagined  that  the  history  of  the  progress  contem¬ 
plated  in  these  conceptions  was  one  which  w&s  conceived  as 
it  would  have  appeared  had  it  really  existed  and  had  minds 
existed  to  perceive  it.  But  if  the  regress  towards  the  nebula 
carry  us  back  towards  a  state  of  things  which  would  have 
been  not  only  inhospitable  but  also  incompatible  with  a  dis¬ 
tinct  mental  existence,  then  we  confess  that  either  idealism  or 
else  these  scientific  conceptions  are  much  at  fault.  But,  inas¬ 
much  as  these  are  still  conceptions,  however  indistinct,  we 
cannot  hesitate  to  give  credit  to  idealism  rather  than  to  such 
self-annihilating  thoughts.  Thoughts  of  a  state  of  things  in 
which  thought  was  impossible  must  be  very  transcendental 
indeed. 

Independently  of  the  perturbing  influence  of  modern  sci¬ 
entific  conceptions,  Mr.  Masson’s  account  of  recent  British 
philosophy  is  not  free  from  confusion.  In  revising  in  his  last 
chapter  his  classification  of  Mill’s  opinions  as  set  forth  in  the 
“Examination”  of  Hamilton’s  doctrines,  Mr.  Masson  ventures 
to  maintain  that  Mr.  Mill’s  empiricism1  is  inconsistent  with  the 
position  of  the  positivists,  that  the  main  theological  questions 
should  be  open  questions  in  the  most  advanced  school  of 
philosophy.  He  “can  see  no  interpretation  of  Mr.  Mill’s 
fundamental  principle  of  empiricism,  according  to  which  those 
questions  of  a  supernatural,  which  he  would  keep  open,  ought 
not  to  be,  at  once  and  forever,  closed  questions.” 

A  question  is  closed  when  we  have  a  knowledge  precluding 
the  possibility  of  evidence  to  the  contrary,  or  where  we  are 
ignorant  beyond  the  possibility  of  enlightenment.  An  on¬ 
tological  knowledge  of  the  supernatural,  or  even  of  the  nat¬ 
ural — that  is,  a  knowledge  of  anything  existing  by  itself  and 
independently  of  its  effects  on  us — is,  according  to  the  ex¬ 
periential  philosophy,  a  closed  question.  But  a  phenomenal 
knowledge  of  the  supernatural  is  nevertheless  a  question  still 
open  until  it  be  shown,  beyond  the  possibility  of  rational  or 
well-founded  doubt,  that  the  law  of  causation  is,  or  is  not, 


MASSON'S  RECENT  BRITISH  PHILOSOPHY. 


349 


universal,  and  that  absolute  personal  agency  or  free  undeter¬ 
mined  voluntary  actions  have,  or  have  not,  determined  at 
any  time  the  order  or  constitution  of  nature — difficult  ques¬ 
tions,  it  is  true,  but  still  open  ones.  Mr.  Masson  implicitly 
identifies  theology  with  ontology — the  supernatural' with  the 
non-phenomenal — and  thus  implicitly  denies  that  anything 
can  be  known  of  the  supernatural,  unless  it  be  known 
absolutely,  or  in  itself.  This  is  to  stake  all  religious  in¬ 
quiry  on  the  truth  of  transcendental  ontology,  a  position 
which  Mr.  Masson,  as  a  liberal  historian  of  philosophy,  can¬ 
not  affirm  as  the  final  conclusion  of  his  inquiry,  or  as  war¬ 
ranted  by  any  reasons  he  has  advanced. 


MANSEL’S  REPLY  TO  MILL.* 


That  the  two  great  schools  of  philosophy  will  never  be  able 
to  make  much  impression  on  one  another  by  way  of  criticism 
seems  pretty  evident  from  the  history  of  the  long  debate  the 
last  words  of  which  reach  us  in  Mr.  Mansel’s  restatement  and 
defense  of  Sir  William  Hamilton’s  philosophy.!  The  only 
real  strength  of  either  school  appears  to  be  in  its  ability  to 
hold  and  fill  the  minds  of  its  disciples  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
other,  not  by  logical  refutations  but  by  competitive  rivalry  in 
meeting  the  intellectual  demands  of  the  thinker.  Few  minds 
could  be  tempted,  even  were  they  competent  to  do  so,  to 
stand  in  fair  judgment  between  these  contestants,  and  the  only 
feasible  course  of  this  sort  ever  recommended  was  that  of 
Pyrrho,  who  advised  his  disciples  to  stand  aside  rather  and  to 
attend  only  to  the  practical  questions  of  life.  For,  after  all, 
the  intellectual  demands  which  these  philosophies  are  calcu¬ 
lated  to  meet  are  creations  of  the  philosophies  themselves, 
and  once  created  they  find  their  food  only  in  the  parent 
thought.  Thus,  the  main  summary  objection  which  the  meta¬ 
physical  spirit  makes  to  the  theories  of  the  sceptical  school  is, 
that  they  fail  to  answer  the  questions  which  the  metaphysical 
school  has  started.  And  the  main  objection  of  the  sceptical 
spirit  to  metaphysics  is,  that  these  questions  are  gratuitous, 
idle,  and  foolish. 

A  compromise  between  the  two  schools  was  nevertheless 
attempted  by  Sir  William  Hamilton  in  his  “  Philosophy  of  the 


*  From  The  Nation,  January  io,  1867. 

t  “The  Philosophy  of  the  Conditioned;  comprising  some  Remarks  on  Sir  William 
Hamilton’s  Philosophy  and  on  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill’s  Examination  of  that  Philosophy.  By 
H.  L.  Mansel,  B.D.”  1866.  Pp.  vii.  and  189.  Reprinted,  with  additions,  from  the 

“Contemporary  Review.” 


M ANSEL'S  REEL  V  TO  MILL. 


351 


Conditioned.”  This  philosophy  allows  the  validity  of  meta¬ 
physical  problems ;  allows  that  the  terms  and  positions  of  the 
orthodox  philosophy  mean  something  possibly  real ;  but  main¬ 
tains  at  the  same  time  that  these  refer  to  unattainable  objects, 
and  that  the  questions  are  unanswerable  so  far  as  human 
powers  of  comprehension  can  render  the  facts  evident  or  even 
intelligible  as  such.  This  philosophy  is  in  strict  accordance 
with  the  teachings  of  Catholic  theology  from  the  earliest 
times,  and  it  gives  great  prominence  to  an  essential  position 
of  this  theology — the  antithesis  of  reason  and  faith,  or  the 
doctrine  of  a  difference  in  kind  between  knowledge  and  belief. 
The  kind  of  entertainment  which,  according  to  the  “Phil¬ 
osophy  of  the  Conditioned,”  it  is  possible  for  the  mind  to 
have  of  the  ideas  of  metaphysics,  far  from  being  a  conviction 
resulting  from  direct  or  intuitive  evidence,  is  not  even  a  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  facts  as  possibly  true.  A  conception  of  the  terms 
and  of  the  propositions  as  such  is,  of  course,  not  only  allowed, 
but  is  an  essential  position  of  this  philosophy.  That  which  is 
regarded  as  inconceivable  is  the  union  of  the  terms  of  these 
propositions  in  reality  as  well  as  in  form — in  the  facts  which 
are  supposed  to  be  stated  in  the  propositions.  That  such 
a  fact  can  be  entertained  or  assented  to  is  the  common  ground 
of  this  philosophy  and  orthodox  theology.  “Faith”  or  “sim¬ 
ple  belief”  is  the  name  of  this  assent.  But  inasmuch  as  this 
assent  is  entirely  independent  of  knowledge  or  probable  evi¬ 
dence,  an  independent  ground  for  it  is  required  among  the 
native  powers  of  the  mind,  and  this  is  also  called  “faith”  or 
“belief.”  Knowledge  and  partial  evidence  may  aid  in  fashion¬ 
ing  our  ideas  of  metaphysical  facts,  but  are  not  regarded  as 
the  grounds  of  our  assent  to  them. 

To  this  extent  the  “Philosophy  of  the  Conditioned”  is 
nothing  more  than  the  doctrine  of  orthodox  theology.  But 
its  essential  feature  is  this :  The  faith  which  is  ultimate  and 
independent  of  knowledge  is  not  in  this  philosophy  a  senti¬ 
ment,  the  issue  of  the  heart,  or  a  conviction  having  its  ground 
in  aspiration,  love,  and  devotion,  but  it  subsists  in  the  cold 
light  of  the  intellect  itself,  where  alone  intellectual  philosophy 
could  profess  to  find  it.  It  subsists  as  a  logical  necessity 


352 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


of  thinking  something  to  exist  which  is  unthinkable — not 
merely  something  which  we  have  not  yet  thought  of — not  the 
unknown  simply,  but  the  unknowable.  Sir  William  Hamilton 
professes  to  demonstrate  this  necessity  in  the  passage  so  often 
quoted  from  his  review  of  Cousin. 

“The  conditioned  is  the  mean  between  two  extremes — two 
inconditionates,  exclusive  of  each  other,  neither  of  which  can 
be  conceived  as  possible ,  but  of  which,  on  the  principles  of  con¬ 
tradiction  and  excluded  middle,  one  must  be  admitted  as  nec¬ 
essary  ,”  etc.  This  application  of  the  logical  laws  of  contra¬ 
diction  and  excluded  middle  is  the  gist  of  the  philosophy 
of  the  conditioned;  and  to  this  Mr.  Mill,  in  his  “Examina¬ 
tion”  of  Hamilton’s  doctrines,  has  distinctly  replied  to  the 
following  effect:  What  is  the  evidence  of  the  impossibility 
of  a  middle  ground  between  contradictory  propositions  ? 
Simply  this :  that  in  all  that  we  know,  and  in  all  which  we 
can  conceive  as  possible,  there  is  no  such  middle  ground. 
What,  then,  is  the  evidence  in  regard  to  that  which  we  cannot 
know  and  cannot  conceive  as  possible  ?  It  is  clear  that  on 
their  proper  evidence  the  laws  of  excluded  middle  and  con¬ 
tradiction  cannot  be  extended  to  such  cases,  and  that  such  an 
extension  of  them  is  purely  gratuitous.  What  hinders,  either 
in  the  laws  of  thought  or  in  our  knowledge  of  things,  that 
there  should  be  an  inconceivable  middle  ground  between 
inconceivable  contradictories  ?  What  hinders  that  both  of 
them  or  that  neither  of  them  should  be  true,  or  that  truth 
should  be  wholly  included  in  what  can  be  understood  as  true  ? 

To  this  refutation  of  the  main  position  of  the  philosophy 
of  the  conditioned,  Mr.  Mansel  makes  no  reference  in  his 
reply,  except  in  a  very  remote  manner,  in  a  passage  in  which 
he  sneers  at  Mr.  Mill’s  apparent  ignorance  of  Hamilton’s 
doctrine  of  the  reality  of  space.  A  favorite  illustration  with 
Hamilton  of  his  laws  of  the  conditioned  is  the  equal  incon¬ 
ceivability,  as  he  asserts,  of  infinite  space  and  space  absolutely 
bounded,  one  of  which,  on  the  ground  of  their  mutual  repug¬ 
nance,  must  be  admitted  as  real.  The  fitness  of  this  illustra¬ 
tion,  to  say  nothing  of  its  truth,  depends  on  its  not  being 
confined  to  space  as  we  know  it,  but  on  its  extension  to  the 


M ANSEL'S  REPLY  TO  MILL. 


353 


really  existent  space,  or  space  independent  of  our  knowledge, 
if  any  such  space  exists.  If  no  such  space  exists,  then  the 
illustration  is  wholly  inapt.  Mr.  Mill,  therefore,  very  nat¬ 
urally  attributes  to  Hamilton  the  only  meaning  which  could 
fit  his  illustration  to  its  use,  and  he  supposes  Hamilton 
to  refer  to  a  “noumenon  space.”  Mr.  Mill  says:  “It  is 
not  merely  space  as  cognizable  by  our  sense,  but  space 
as  it  is  in  itself,  which  he  [Hamilton]  affirms  must  be  ei¬ 
ther  of  unlimited  or  of  limited  extent.”  “At  this  sentence,” 
exclaims  Mr.  Mansel,  “we  fairly  stand  aghast.”  “Space  as  it 
is  in  itself!  The  noumenon  space!  Has  Mr.  Mill  been  all 
this  while  ‘  examining  ’  Sir  William  Hamilton’s  philosophy  in 
utter  ignorance  that  the  object  of  that  philosophy  is  the  ‘con¬ 
ditioned  in  time  and  space that  he  accepts  Kant’s  analysis 
of  time  and  space  as  formal  necessities  of  thought,  but  pro¬ 
nounces  no  opinion  whatever  as  to  whether  time  and  space 
can  exist  as  noumena  or  not?”  (p.  138).  And  so  Mr.  Man¬ 
sel  runs  off  on  an  irrelevant  issue  from  the  nearest  approach 
he  makes  to  the  gist  of  the  matter. 

The  first  sixty  pages  of  Mr.  Mansel’s  review  are  devoted  to 
a  positive  exposition  of  the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the 
“unconditioned,”  that  “highest  link  in  the  chain  of  thought,” 
that  “absolutely  first  link  in  a  chain  of  phenomena”  about 
which  metaphysicians  have  gratuitously  confused  themselves 
for  so  many  ages.  Mr.  Mansel  endeavors  to  clear  up  the 
matter  by  discussing  the  terms  employed  in  the  doctrine,  and 
especially  the  meanings  attached  to  them  by  Hamilton.  He 
then  comes  to  the  trial  of  Mr.  Mill’s  “Examination,”  and  this 
is  his  indictment:  “Not  only  is  Mr.  Mill’s  attack  on  Hamil¬ 
ton’s  philosophy,  with  the  exception  of  some  minor  details, 
unsuccessful ;  but  we  are  compelled  to  add  that,  with  regard 
to  the  three  fundamental  doctrines  of  that  philosophy — the 
relativity  of  knowledge,  the  incognizability  of  the  absolute 
and  infinite,  and  the  distinction  between  reason  and  faith — 
Mr.  Mill  has,  throughout  his  criticism,  altogether  missed  the 
meaning  of  the  theories  he  is  attempting  to  assail”  (p.  63). 
More  specifically  he  charges  Mr.  Mill  with  ignorance  of  the 
history  of  the  questions  discussed ;  with  frequent  perversions 


354 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DLSCUSSIONS. 


and  even  inversions  of  the  meanings  of  the  terms  employed 
by  Hamilton  and  other  metaphysicians,  and  with  an  unpar¬ 
donable  want  of  familiarity  with  Plato  and  with  the  antiquity 
of  the  doctrines  which  he  discovers  as  absurdities  in  Hamilton 
and  our  author. 

A  scholastic  display  of  subtle  learning  was  probably  not 
Mr.  Mill’s  object  in  entering  into  this  debate  with  the  meta¬ 
physicians.  If  metaphysical  philosophy  had  been  content  to 
remain  a  purely  theoretical  philosophy,  shut  up  in  its  own 
technicalities,  and  in  the  original  Greek ;  if  it  had  disdained 
to  descend  into  the  arena  of  practical  life  and  to  influence 
men’s  conduct,  no  really  earnest  critic,  like  Mr.  Mill,  would 
have  opposed  its  pretensions.  If  it  had  not  translated  itself 
into  the  vernacular,  and  wrested  words  of  a  familiar  and 
practical  application  from  their  familiar  and  practical  use,  and 
thereby  sought  to  enslave  the  souls  of  men  to  a  scholastic  and 
ecclesiastical  authority,  no  criticisms  like  Mr.  Mill’s  would 
have  disturbed  its  self-complacency. 

That  Pyrrho  was  wrong  in  his  advice  to  abstain  from  such 
disputations,  is  sufficiently  evinced  by  the  influence  upon  prac¬ 
tical  life  which  the  doctrines  of  Hamilton  and  Mansel  were 
calculated  to  exert.  “That  a  true  psychology  is  the  indispen¬ 
sable  basis  of  morals,  of  politics,  of  the  science  and  art  of 
education ;  that  the  difficulties  of  metaphysics  lie  at  the  root 
of  all  science ;  that  these  difficulties  can  only  be  quieted  by 
being  resolved,  and  that  until  they  are  resolved — positively,  if 
possible,  but  at  any  rate  negatively — we  are  never  assured 
that  any  human  knowledge,  even  physical,  stands  on  solid 
foundations;”  these  are  reasons  enough  for  examining  the 
pretensions  of  the  metaphysical  philosophy;  these  are  the 
sufficient  grounds  of  the  practical  critic’s  interest  in  those 
formidable  words,  the  infinite  and  the  absolute,  the  chevaux 
de  bataille  of  metaphysics.  For  these  words  are  also  common 
and  familiar  ones,  and  are  commonly  and  familiarly  used,  as 
Mr.  Mansel  himself  admits,  in  senses  different  from  those 
assigned  to  them  by  the  metaphysicians;  but  the  conclusions 
drawn  from  their  definitions  in  metaphysics  are  inevitably 
interpreted  into  a  practical  accordance  with  the  common- 


355 


MANSE  VS  REEL  Y  TO  MILL. 

% 

sense  meanings  of  the  words,  and  hence  lead  to  false  judg¬ 
ments  concerning  the  character  of  the  evidences  of  religious 
and  moral  truths. 

Mr.  Mill’s  real  end  was,  therefore,  a  practical  one — to  show 
that  in  the  recognized  common  meanings  of  these  words  the 
doctrines  of  metaphysics  make  arrant  nonsense,  and  that  these 
words  have  a  valid,  useful,  and  intelligible  application  to  the 
most  serious  practical  relations  of  life,  without  any  reference 
to  their  use  in  metaphysics.  Mr.  Mansel  uses  the  word  “ab¬ 
solute”  in  a  sense  different  even  from  Hamilton’s,  and  com¬ 
plains  that  Mr.  Mill  has  not  given  him  the  benefit  of  his  phil¬ 
osophically  clearer  and  correcter  definition.  But  we  imagine 
that  Mr.  Mill  was  more  concerned  to  do  justice  to  the  com¬ 
mon-sense  meaning  of  the  word  than  to  Mr.  Mansel. 

That  the  words  “infinite”  and  “absolute,”  as  defined  in 
metaphysics,  involve  contradictions  in  their  definitions,  and 
not  in  the  attempt  to  conceive  the  reality  of  the  things  de¬ 
fined,  is  the  position  which  Mr.  Mill  maintains  against  the 
philosophy  of  the  conditioned.  “The  contradictions  which 
Mr.  Mansel  asserts  to  be  involved  in  the  notions  do  not 
follow,”  says  Mr.  Mill,  “from  an  imperfect  mode  of  appre¬ 
hending  the  infinite  and  the  absolute,  but  lie  in  the  definitions 
of  them,  in  the  meanings  of  the  words  themselves.”  This 
position  Mr.  Mansel  flatly  denies.  He  holds  that  these  mean¬ 
ings  are  perfectly  intelligible,  and  are  exactly  what  are  ex¬ 
pressed  by  the  definitions  of  the  words.  To  test  this,  let  us 
take  an  example.  “If  we  could  realize  in  thought  infinite 
space,”  says  an  anonymous  writer  (a  diligent  student  of  Sir 
William  Hamilton’s  writings,  whom  Mr.  Mansel  quotes  with 
approbation),  “that  conception  would  be  a  perfectly  definite 
one.”  The  infinite,  then,  is  not  the  indefinite.  It  is  a  unit,  a 
whole.  But  it  is  without  limits.  It  is,  then,  a  whole  without 
limits.  But  a  whole  implies  limits.  We  know  of  no  whole 
which  has  not  limits.  We  can  conceive  of  no  whole  which 
has  not  limits.  Limits,  in  fact,  belong  to  the  essence  of  every 
whole  of  which  we  speak  intelligibly.  Does  not  the  meta¬ 
physical  idea  or  definition  of  infinity  involve,  therefore,  a 
contradiction  ? 


356 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


Of  the  common  idea  of  the  infinite,  as  involved  in  the 
concrete  example,  “  infinite  space,”  Mr.  Mill  says  :  “  The  neg¬ 
ative  part  of  this  conception  is  the  absence  of  bounds.  The 
positive  is  the  idea  of  space,  and  of  space  greater  than  any 
finite  space.”  “This  definition  of  infinite  space  is,”  says  Mr. 
Mansel,  “exactly  that  which  Descartes  gives  us  of  indefi?iite 
extension .”  But  an  indefinite  extension,  according  to  Des¬ 
cartes,  is  that  which  is  capable  of  unlimited  increase,  and  we 
fail  to  see  the  identity  of  this  with  Mr.  Mill’s  definition. 
Moreover,  according  to  the  metaphysicians,  the  infinite  and 
the  finite,  being  contradictories,  include  all  there  is;  and  as  the 
indefinite  is  not  the  infinite,  it  must  be  some  finite.  But  Mr. 
Mill  says  that  his  infinite  is  greater  than  any  finite.  How, 
then,  can  it  be  the  same  as  the  indefinite  ?  “  Greater  than 

any  finite”  excludes  the  finite  as  effectually  as  an  absolute 
negation  of  it,  but  it  has  this  positive  peculiarity,  that  it 
excludes  the  finite  in  an  essential  and  characteristic  manner. 
“Greater  than”  is  a  much  more  specific  form  of  denial  than 
the  “is  not”  by  which  the  metaphysicians  are  content  to 
distinguish  the  infinite  from  the  finite.  It  is  this  specific  and 
characteristic  mode  of  exclusion  which  constitutes  the  positive 
part  of  the  abstract  conception  of  the  infinite,  and,  according 
to  Mr.  Mansel,  a  positive  conception,  or  the  positive  part 
of  a  conception,  is  that  of  which  we  can  conceive  the  manna 
of  its  realization.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  Mr.  Mansel 
means  by  this  that  only  those  conceptions  are  positive  of 
which  we  can  have  examples  in  intuition,  for  this  would  be  to 
identify  positive  conceptions  with  adequate  ones.  No  one 
asserts  that  the  infinite  can  be  adequately  conceived  ex¬ 
cept  the  “rationalists,”  to  whom  Mr.  Mill  is  as  much  op¬ 
posed  as  Hamilton  or  Mansel;  but,  as  Mr.  Mill  observes, 
“between  a  conception  which,  though  inadequate,  is  real  and 
correct  as  far  as  it  goes,  and  the  impossibility  of  any  concep¬ 
tion,  there  is  a  wide  difference.” 

The  common  notion  of  infinity  is  not,  then,  a  mere  nega 
tion.  It  refers  to  and  is  related  to  positive  experience,  and  to 
valid  operations  of  the  mind  in  drawing  conclusions  from 
experience.  It  is  not  the  same  as  the  indefinite ;  it  is  not  that 


M ANSELS  REPLY  TO  MILL. 


357 


to  which  an  unlimited  addition  is  possible,  since  it  is  defined 
as  the  greatest  possible,  greater  than  any  quantities  which  can 
be  measured  or  compared  by  their  differences.*  The  meta¬ 
physical  idea  or  definition  of  infinity,  on  the  contrary,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  not  merely  negative,  involves  a  contradiction,  since 
it  is  asserted  to  be  a  definite  whole,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to 
be  without  limits. 

Mr.  Mansel  quotes  Locke  against  Mr.  Mill’s  position,  to  the 
effect  that  the  supposition  of  an  actual  idea  of  the  infinite 
realized  in  the  mind  involves  a  contradiction.  But  Mr.  Mill 
does  not  suppose  the  notion  to  be  fully  realized  or  to  be 
capable  of  complete  realization.  It  is  important  only  that  the 
notion  be  true  so  far  as  it  goes,  or  that  it  should  accord  with 
the  facts  and  the  evidences  which  the  mind  is  capable  of 
comprehending. 

We  must  pass  over  other  special  points  of  criticism,  and 
hasten  to  the  chief  practical  ground  of  difference,  which  we 
conceive  to  have  furnished  the  real  motive  of  Mr.  Mill’s 
“Examination”  of  Hamilton’s  and  Mansel’s  doctrines.  Our 
readers  will  remember  the  paragraph  in  the  “  Examination,” 
p.  103: 

“If,  instead  of  the  ‘glad  tidings’  that  there  exists  a  Being  in  whom 
all  the  excellences  which  the  highest  human  mind  can  conceive  exist  in  a 

*  But  such  quantities  may  still  be  compared  by  their  ratios  when,  as  in  the  higher 
mathematics,  they  are  “the  greatest  possible”  under  certain  conditions  which  do  not, 
however,  determine  or  limit  their  values  as  numbers,  or  as  definite  sums  of  units. 

In  a  foot-note  (p.  115),  Mr.  Mansel  breaks  a  lance  with  Professor  De  Morgan,  “one 
of  the  ablest  mathematicians  and  the  most  persevering  Hamiltono-mastix  of  the  day.” 
De  Morgan  maintains  the  applicability  of  a  valid  notion  of  infinity  to  mathematical  mag¬ 
nitudes  ;  but  unfortunately  assumes  besides,  or  appears  to  assume,  that  such  phrases  as 
“points  at  an  infinite  distance,”  “the  extremities  of  infinite  lines,”  etc.,  are  literally 
valid  in  mathematics.  This  assumption  Mr.  Mansel  easily  refutes.  But  the  main  po¬ 
sition  remains  untouched.  With  the  mathematician  such  phrases  are  really  technical 
abbreviated  expressions  of  a  complex  conception.  Having  shown  validly  and  con¬ 
sistently  that  lines  of  unlimited  length  tend  to  approach  continually  to  a  given  state  of 
things,  or  to  a  given  relation  to  one  another,  but  in  a  manner  which  makes  it  impos¬ 
sible  for  them  as  lines,  continuously  drawn,  ever  to  reach  this  state  of  things,  the 
mathematician  then  changes  the  object  of  his  contemplation.  He  dismisses  the  in¬ 
finite  line,  and  turns  his  attention  to  the  state  of  things  (the  point  of  tangency,  for 
example)  to  which  his  infinite  lines,  though  always  approaching,  could  never  attain. 
Instead  of  spanning  the  infinite  in  his  thought,  he  simply  abbreviates  in  his  language 
that  substitution  of  one  object  for  another  which  conducts  him  to  the  end  of  his  re¬ 
search. 


358 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


degree  inconceivable  to  us,  I  am  informed  that  the  world  is  ruled  by  a 
being  whose  attributes  are  infinite  ;  but  what  they  are  we  cannot  learn, 
nor  what  are  the  principles  of  his  government,  except  that  ‘the  highest 
human  morality  which  we  are  capable  of  conceiving’  does  not  sanction 
them  ;  convince  me  of  it,  and  I  will  bear  my  fate  as  I  may.  But  when  I 
am  told  that  I  must  believe  this,  and,  at  the  same  time,  call  this  being  by 
the  names  which  express  and  affirm  the  highest  human  morality,  I  say, 
in  plain  terms,  that  I  will  not.  Whatever  power  such  a  being  may  have 
over  me,  there  is  one  thing  which  he  shall  not  do :  he  shall  not  compel 
me  to  worship  him.  I  will  call  no  being  good  who  is  not  what  I  mean 
when  I  apply  that  epithet  to  my  fellow-creatures  ;  and  if  such  a  being 
can  sentence  me  to  hell  for  not  so  calling  him,  to  hell  I  will  go.” 

To  this  Mr.  Mansel  replies  by  discussing  the  meaning  of 
the  word  “ good.”  He  asks  “whether  Mr.  Mill  really  sup¬ 
poses  the  word  good  to  lose  all  community  of  meaning  when 
it  is  applied,  as  it  constantly  is,  to  different  persons  among  our 
‘fellow-creatures,’  with  express  reference  to  their  different  du¬ 
ties  and  different  qualifications  for  performing  them  ?  ”  and  he 
proposes  to  “test  Mr.  Mill’s  declamation  by  a  parallel  case”: 

“A  wise  and  experienced  father  addresses  a  young  and  inexperienced 
son.  ‘  My  son,’  he  says,  ‘there  may  be  some  of  my  actions  which  do  not 
seem  to  you  to  be  wise  or  good,  or  such  as  you  would  do  in  my  place. 
Remember,  however,  that  your  duties  are  different  from  mine,  that  your 
knowledge  of  my  duties  is  very  imperfect,  and  that  there  may  be  things 
which  you  cannot  see  to  be  wise  and  good,  but  which  you  may  hereafter 
discover  to  be  so.’  ‘Father,’  says  the  son,  ‘your  principles  of  action 
are  not  the  same  as  mine ;  the  highest  morality  which  I  can  conceive  at 
present  does  not  sanction  them ;  and  as  for  believing  that  you  are  good 
in  anything  of  which  I  do  not  plainly  see  the  goodness’ —  We  will 
not  repeat  Mr.  Mill’s  alternative;  we  will  only  ask  whether  it  is  not  just 
possible  that  there  may  be  as  much  difference  between  man  and  God  as 
there  is  between  a  child  and  his  father  ?  ” 

This  “parallel  case”  is,  in  an  important  respect,  a  very 
happy  one.  It  suggests  the  real  practical  issue  of  the  debate, 
unencumbered  by  theological  and  metaphysical  obscurities; 
but  to  make  it  perfect,  the  parallel  should  be  more  exact. 
The  real  question  is  as  to  the  child’s  obligation  to  respect  his 
father’s  wisdom  and  goodness  independently  of  any  experience 
of  them,  and  solely  on  the  ground  of  that  parent’s  word  for 
them.  If,  from  the  wisdom  and  the  goodness  which  the  child 
has  seen  and  understood,  he  infers  uncomprehended  higher 


M ANSEL'S  RE  PL  Y  TO  MILL. 


359 


degrees  of  these  qualities,  reasoning  from  the  known  to  the 
unknown,  just  as  he  does  in  all  other  relations  of  life,  and  just 
as  we  all  do,  then  the  child  bases  his  faith  on  the  sure  and  only 
ground  of  knowledge;  and  his  deference  to  the  father’s  judg¬ 
ment  in  all  cases  of  doubt  or  conflict  is  the  natural  and  direct 
consequence  of  a  faith  so  grounded.  But  if,  bewildered  and 
oppressed  by  a  metaphysical  difficulty  in  trying  to  compre¬ 
hend  the  peculiar  duties  of  a  father,  he  should  base  his  faith 
on  his  ignorance  of  them,  and  believe  in  the  goodness  which 
he  cannot  comprehend,  believing  because  of  his  ignorance 
and  not  on  account  of  the  little  knowledge  he  does  possess ; 
and  if,  in  his  blind  devotion,  he  should  abdicate  his  own 
intelligence,  reject  his  own  clear  judgments  of  right,  when 
they  are  brought  into  apparent  conflict  with  the  parent’s  self¬ 
ishness,  or  with  that  of  servants  claiming  to  speak  by  author¬ 
ity,  then  the  child’s  devotion  would  not  be  that  of  an  ingen¬ 
uous,  filial  piety ;  it  would  rather  be  an  abject  slavish  sub¬ 
mission.  Such  we  conceive  to  be  the  really  parallel  case, 
involving  the  real  practical  issue  between  the  two  philosophies. 
Faith  is,  in  one,  founded  on  knowledge  by  experience;  in  the 
other,  it  is  independent  of  knowledge. 


LEWES’S  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE  AND  MINI).*  t 


In  one  of  the  few  passages  of  Aristotle’s  voluminous  writ¬ 
ings  which  contain  a  direct  reference  to  himself  he  declares 
that  in  his  logical  discoveries  and  inventions  he  had  no  help 
and  no  precursors.  He  says  :  “  The  syllogism  as  a  system  and 
theory,  with  precepts  founded  on  that  theory  for  demonstra¬ 
tion  and  dialectic,  has  originated  with  me.  Mine  is  the  first 
step,  and  therefore  a  small  one,  though  worked  out  with  much 
thought  and  hard  labor;  it  must  be  looked  at  as  a  first  step 
and  judged  with  indulgence.  You,  my  readers,  or  hearers 
of  my  lectures,  if  you  think  I  have  done  as  much  as  can 
fairly  be  required  for  an  initiatory  start,  compared  with  other 
more  advanced  departments  of  theory,  will  acknowledge  what 
I  have  achieved  and  pardon  what  I  have  left  others  to  accom¬ 
plish.”  “In  such  modest  terms  does  Aristotle  speak,”  says 
Stuart  Mill,  “of  what  he  had  done  for  a  theory  which  in  the 
judgment  even  of  so  distant  an  age  as  the  present,  he  did  not 
as  he  himself  says,  merely  commence,  but  completed, — ^so  far 
as  completeness  can  be  affirmed  of  a  scientific  doctrine.” 
Such  unconsciousness  of  self  as  identified  with  a  great  work, 
such  an  estimate  of  the  work  accomplished  as  compared  to 
what  was  undertaken  or  hoped  for,  is  characteristic  of  the 
world’s  greatest  thinkers.  Newton’s  indifference  to  the  world’s 
estimate  of  what  had  been  to  him  merely  a  diversion  on  the 
shores  of  the  great  unexplored  ocean  of  truth  before  him,  did 
not  rise  from  an  underestimate  of  the  value  of  his  work  com¬ 
pared  to  that  of  his  precursors,  since  it  was  not  with  this  that 


*  The  latter  portion  of  this  essay  was  published  in  The  Nation,  June  n,  1874;  the 
introductory  part  is  now  first  printed  from  the  author’s  manuscript. 

T  “Problems  of  Life  and  Mind.  By  George  Henry  Lewes.  First  series.  The  Foun 
dations  of  a  Creed.  Vol.  I.”  1874.  Svo,  pp.  434. 


LEWES'S  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE  AND  MIND.  361 

he  habitually  compared  it.  Self-assurance  of  ability  in  thought 
gained  from  such  a  comparison  as  a  remedy  to  self-distrust  is, 
however,  apt  to  be  eagerly  sought  by  thinkers  of  an  inferior 
rank.  Hence,  independently  of  any  criticism  of  the  work  of 
these  thinkers  there  is  that  in  the  mere  personality  of  style 
which  enables  the  world  to  estimate  the  rank  of  a  thinker, 
and  to  recognize  its  greatest  minds.  If  it  were  not  for  this 
quality  in  style  wisdom  could  hardly  be  distinguished  from 
orthodoxy  by  any  but  the  wise  themselves,  that  is,  by  the  few ; 
or  would  be  only  a  happy  utterance  of  the  opinions  and 
expressed  judgments  of  its  admirers. 

Among  the  many  problems,  now  outgrown,  which  engaged 
the  speculation  of  the  ancient  world  was  one  which  this 
quality  of  wisdom  thus  manifested  and  recognized  without 
being  fully  known,  forced  upon  the  attention  of  philosophers. 
Sophia  was  the  name,  perhaps  for  this. reason,  given  by  Aris¬ 
totle  to  the  science  afterwards  called  his  metaphysics,  which 
treats  of  the  most  abstract  relations,  and  the  first  principles  of 
the  special  science  or  philosophy  separated  from  them  though 
derived,  according  to  him,  from  their  foundations  in  experience, 
and  from  their  special  object  matters.  His  issue  with  Plato 
was  that  Sophia  is  not  eternal  in  a  world  of  ideas,  and  is  not 
born  in  the  man  except  as  a  greater  power  of  observation, 
induction,  and  clear  thought  making  the  most  of  its  means 
and  opportunities.  Though  his  first  philosophy  was  also 
called  ontology,  since  it  dealt  with  the  relations  of  things 
merely  as  things,  or  with  what  was  common  to  all  objects 
of  scientific  comprehension,  yet  he  gave  no  warrant  for  the 
meanings  which  the  terms  ontology  and  metaphysics  after¬ 
wards  acquired,  and  which  they  now  have  in  relation  to 
sources  of  knowledge,  supposed  to  be  distinct  from  proper 
scientific  evidences.  These  terms  have  become  so  far  identi¬ 
fied  with  the  doctrine  of  transcendentalism,  the  modern  form 
of  Platonism,  that  is,  with  supposed  or  supra-sensible  grounds 
of  valid  belief,  that  they  have  been  discarded  by  many  modern 
thinkers  as  tending  from  their  acquired  meanings  to  associate  in 
the  mind  falsely  the  objects  of  legitimate  speculation  in  the  most 
abstruse  problems  with  that  solution  of  them  which  is  by  nc 
16 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISCUSSIONS. 


362 

means  accepted  or  acceptable  to  the  clearest  thinkers.  Comte 
not  only  rejected  these  terms  with  others  like  Cause  and  Sub¬ 
stance,  from  philosophy,  because  they  had  come  to  connote  a 
false  doctrine,  but  because,  as  he  thought,  they  were  hopelessly 
tainted  with  a  disposition  of  the  mind  in  the  use  of  language 
to  attach  the  notion  of  reality,  or  of  being  like  a  thing,  to 
every  familiar  abstraction,  and  especially  to  such  as  show 
a  marked  contrast  in  their  apparent  simplicity  in  the  famil¬ 
iar  though  merely  symbolic  employment  of  them  with  their 
really  complex  and  ill-understood  signification.  As  in  the 
crudest  forms  of  speculative  imagination  things  and  efficient 
causes  are  personified,  or,  more  properly,  are  undistinguished 
from  the  more  familiar  natures  of  persons  and  volitions,  so 
Comte  regarded  the  tendency  to  “realize  abstractions,”  or  to 
consider  them  divided,  just  as  things  are  divided,  as  a  crude 
mode  of  thought  relative  to  the  positive  stage  which  some 
modern  sciences  have  entered.  And  to  hasten  the  progress 
of  the  scientific  mode  of  thought  he  proposed  to  discard  certain 
terms,  or  to  substitute  others  for  them  less  liable  to  this  in¬ 
fection. 

Aristotle  was  not  fully  aware  of  this  source  of  error,  though 
he  knew  well  enough  what  transcendentalism  means.  He 
rejected  the  latter  error  as  a  doctrine  of  evidence,  though  he 
was  not  free  from  the  tendency  to  realize  abstractions.  Mr. 
Lewes,  though  for  so  many  years  a  student  and  expounder 
of  Comte,  is  much  nearer  to  Aristotle  than  to  his  modern 
master  in  this  respect. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  this  confusion  of 
differences  in  the  abstract  with  concrete  divisions  in  our 
knowledge  is  one  purposely  committed  by  any  modern  thinker 
of  note,  or  is  done  consciously  and  formally  as  it  was  by  some 
of  the  realist  schoolmen.  Nevertheless  the  tendency  is  so 
strong  in  all  who  are  not  empiricists  by  practice  as  well  as  in 
doctrine,  that  writers  in  whom  we  should  a  priori  least  expect 
it  still  give  most  marked  indications  of  the  tendency.  It  is  a 
vice  more  common  with  the  disciples  and  commentators  of 
philosophy  than  with  great  original  thinkers.  It  is  what 
naturally  happens  when  we  become  familiar  with  a  name  and 


LEWES'S  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE  AND  MIND.  363 


with  fragments,  as  it  were,  of  its  meaning,  long  before  the 
whole  signification  is  set  before  us,  or  where  there  is  no 
definite  connotation, but  rather  a  very  vague  and  complex  one, 
in  the  name  itself,  as  in  the  words  civilization,  gentleman,  or 
honor,  which  correspond  to  different  notions,  or  complex  sets 
of  notions,  in  different  minds  according  to  the  scope  of  their 
experience.  Investigators  in  modern  science  not  especially 
distinguished  for  philosophical  acumen  yet  often  have  the  skill 
to  exert  toward  the  objects  of  their  pursuit  the  logical  function 
of  giving  valid  names,  or  tying  things  together  in  new  bundles. 
This  skill,  so  far  as  it  goes,  gives  to  the  scientific  empiricist  in 
practice  a  power  which  is  shown  in  the  higher  philosophy  only 
by  the  most  original  thinkers.  Every  student  of  science  is 
thus  within  his  own  province  of  practical  empiricism  a  pos¬ 
itivist  :  though  beyond  this  province  he  may  be  a  believer  in 
a  priori  or  transcendental  evidence,  and  will  almost  certainly 
be  more  or  less  of  a  realist  unconsciously,  if  hot  avowedly.* 
Realism  as  a  vice  of  thought,  and  transcendentalism  as  a 
doctrine  of  evidence,  things  very  distinct  in  meaning,  are 
closely  allied  in  fact. 

A  distinction  in  existing  terms  is  called  an  abstract  one,  and 
is  often  called,  with  a  certain  degree  of  propriety,  a  meta¬ 
physical  distinction  when  it  is  considered  in  itself,  and,  though 
clearly  defined,  is  not  considered  with  reference  to  its  classi- 
ficatory  value,  or  in  reference  to  its  coincidence  with  other 
distinctions  which  together  with  it  serve  to  mark  out  concrete 
objects  or  distinguish  them  as  real  classes  or  kinds. 

The  classifications  of  natural  history  and  chemistry  afford 
more  valuable  principles  of  criticism  on  metaphysical  systems 

*  He  may  even  be  such  with  respect  to  the  more  abstruse  portions  of  his  own  science 
or  to  portions  in  which  he  is  a  learner  or  disciple  rather  than  an  investigator.  The  dis¬ 
position  to  give  a  unity  in  thought  to  the  meaning  of  a  single  name  whose  connotation 
is  not  fully  known  or  is  a  vague  and  complex  set  of  attributes  or  relations,  is  an  always 
present  temptation  to  speculate  a  priori  or  on  transcendental  grounds  of  naming:  or  to 
suppose  that  the  empirical  attributes  connoted  by  the  name  are  collected  around  a  cen¬ 
tral  and  essential,  but  transcendental,  condition  of  their  co-existence,  that  brings  them  all 
together.  The  metaphysical  effort  is  to  “seize  ”  upon  this  condition  ;  but  the  definite¬ 
ness  in  thought  thus  gained  is  rather  in  the  emphasis  of  the  seizure  than  in  the  palpable 
nature  of  its  object,  and  the  metaphysical  grasp,  though  often  vigorous,  is  too  often 
empty.  Aristotle  was,  for  instance,  in  Logic  a  positivist,  and  was  opposed  to  transcend¬ 
entalism  in  philosophy,  though  not  free,  as  we  have  said,  from  realism. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


36  4 

than  any  doctrines  of  method  among  metaphysicians  them¬ 
selves,  either  ancient  or  modern.  This  modern  addition  to  prin¬ 
ciples  of  method  in  philosophy  is  of  the  very  greatest  value.  Ev¬ 
ery  naturalist  is  now  familiar  with  the  fact  that  empirical  choice 
is  necessarily  made  between  characters  and  distinctions  with 
reference  to  their  value  in  classification.  A  division  of  ani¬ 
mals  into  aqueous  and  terrestrial,  for  instance,  or  into  air- 
breathing  and  water-breathing,  is  not  faulty  merely  because 
there  are  amphibious  animals.  Indeed,  in  a  restricted  sense, 
when  it  refers  to  the  co-existence  of  lungs  and  gills  the  term 
amphibious  is  a  more  useful  one  in  natural  history  than  any 
terms  referring  simply  to  the  animal’s  external  relations.  Such 
terms  of  distinction  are  not  found  to  coincide  with  the  nu¬ 
merous  other  and  less  conspicuous  distinctions  which  together 
determine  real  kinds.  A  division  of  animals  into  vertebrates 
and  invertebrates,  or  into  warm-blooded  and  cold-blooded, 
is  much  more  fundamental,  and  valuable  in  discriminating 
real  kinds,  yet  no  metaphysical  insight  ever  excogitated  this 
value  in  it.  The  absence  of  any  canon  of  method  in  meta¬ 
physics  for  discovering  the  relative  values  of  its  numerous 
distinctions  is  th‘e  one  great  vice  of  its  systems,  and  is  a  more 
characteristic  mark  than  either  the  doctrine  of  transcendental¬ 
ism  in  any  of  its  forms,  or  the  tendency  to  vagueness  and  the 
confusion  of  distinctions  in  abstractions  with  differences  in 
things.  These  are  indeed  consequences  of  the  fatal  want  of 
method  in  all  ancient  philosophy,  and  in  the  modern  so  far  as 
it  is  a  lineal  descendant  from  the  ancient.  Though  many 
modern  writers  like  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  M.  Taine  (on  In¬ 
telligence)  and  Mr.  Lewes  condemn  transcendentalism,  their 
works  are  very  properly  regarded  as  metaphysical  since  they 
continue  to  pursue  abstractions  with  as  little  reference  to  their 
empirically  determined  value  in  classification  as  ever  the  an¬ 
cients  did.  Analogical  generalization  rather  than  transcend¬ 
entalism  is  the  characteristic  method  of  the  system-building 
modern  English  school  of  metaphysics.*  The  history  of  such 

*  While  a  naturalist  or  a  chemist  would  be  ready  in  conformity  to  widening  knowledge 
of  facts  to  remodel  or  revolutionize  his  divisions  or  even  his  nomenclature,  metaphysical 
systems  aim  at  the  same  end  by  allowing  unlimited  expansions  to  the  meanings  of  term& 
Vagueness  in  them  is  even  claimed  '.s  a  merit  when  it  is  perceived. 


LEWES'S  PA  OB  LEMS  OF  LIFE  A  ND .  MLND.  365 

terms  as  “matter  and  form,”  as,  from  Aristotle  downwards, 
they  gradually  came  to  be  applied  more  and  more  widely  or 
with  vaguer  and  vaguer  meanings  until  they  ceased  to  have 
any  meaning  at  all  in  their  universal  application,  except  that 
the  one  meant  all  the  other  did  not  mean  ;  the  endless  dis¬ 
putes  as  to  how  studies  should  be  arranged  in  the  assumed 
division  into  arts  and  sciences ;  as  to  whether,  for  example, 
Logic  was  a  science  or  an  art ;  such  cases  illustrate  the  essen¬ 
tial  character  of  metaphysical  speculation. 

Mr.  Lewes  has,  in  overlooking  this  fact,  illustrated  it  anew. 
Dissenting  from  Comte’s  opinion  that  the  term  metaphysics  is 
no  longer  of  any  use,  and  may  be  discarded  along  with  the 
names  of  several  allied  subjects,  and  with  terms  that  have  a 
metaphysical  taint  and  for  which  better  terms  may  be  sub¬ 
stituted  :  holding,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  latter  have  valid 
meanings  in  experiential  or  positive  philosophy,  and  that  not 
only  logic  and  psychology,  but  even  metaphysics  deserve 
a  distinct  place  in  the  classification  of  the  sciences,  he  discards 
important  features  of  Comtism  by  making  in  metaphysics 
a  metaphysical  distinction.  He  divides  it  into  valid  meta¬ 
physics,  amenable  to  the  methods  of  science,  and  a  branch 
which  he  calls  metempirics.  As  a  move  in  the  tactics  of 
philosophical  debate  this  invention  might  be  good.  Modern 
transcendentalism  has  given  formal  assent  to  the  validity  and 
importance  of  modern  principles  of  scientific  method,  as  it  had 
before  to  various  precepts  in  philosophical  method;  but  for 
itself  it  openly  repudiates  allegiance  to  the  special  methods 
of  scientific  research,  and  takes  refuge  from  criticism  in  as¬ 
sumed  a  priori  grounds  of  knowledge,  under  the  guidance 
of  Kant.  It  has  gone,  it  supposes,  beyond  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  principles  of  method  to  which  science  is  subjected. 
What  has  it  to  do  with  the  rules  and  instruments  of  induction 
if  its  evidence  is  not  inductive  ?  To  dislodge  metaphysics 
from  this  fortress  by  effecting  a  diversion  and  a  division  of  its 
forces  ;  to  claim  for  science  all  the  rational  problems  of  meta¬ 
physics  ;  to  claim  the  name  metaphysics  for  the  rational  solu¬ 
tions  of  them  in  which  numbers  can  agree,  and,  for  this 
purpose,  to  invent  a  name  happily  (or  unhappily)  adapted  to 


366 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


bear  the  odium  of  all  the  follies  and  errors  for  which  meta¬ 
physics  has  been  condemned ;  namely,  the  word  metempirics — 
ill-fated  at  birth — such  appears  to  be  our  author’s  purpose. 
But  in  this  he  has.  assumed  that  metaphysics  is  characterized 
by  the  doctrine  of  transcendentalism ;  that  it  is  the  doctrine 
of  innate  ideas. 

It  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  assign  to  the  name 
metaphysics  its  meaning  in  modern  usage,  or  to  distinguish  it 
from  general  philosophy  and  the  abstruser  parts  of  the  sciences 
by  proper  definition;  and  especially,  so  far  as  its  method  is 
concerned,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  precepts  of  method  com¬ 
mon  to  all  well-conducted  speculations.  A  lack  of  method,  or 
of  many  well-grounded  canons  of  research  and  criticism,  ap¬ 
pears  to  be  all  that  truly  characterizes  it,  independently  of  an 
enumeration  of  the  special  topics  and  doctrines  to  which  the 
name  is  usually  given.  Its  method  at  any  particular  epoch  in 
the  history  of  philosophy  appears  to  have  been  little  else  than 
the  application  of  some  principal  doctrine  in  it  to  subsidiary 
topics,  the  defense  of  which  against  sceptical  criticisms,  or 
against  other  principles  of  method,  has  generally  been  the 
most  distinctive  part  it  has  played  in  the  history  of  philosophy. 
What  is  called  the  “method”  of  metaphysics  is  really  an  essen¬ 
tia]  part  of  it,  considered  as  a  scientific  doctrine.  For  exam¬ 
ple,  the  realism  of  Plato,  and  the  forms  of  the  doctrine  held  by 
the  Scotist  and  Thomist  schoolmen;  Plato’s  doctrine,  that  all 
real  knowledge  is  a  kind  of  reminiscence,  with  the  modern 
doctrines  of  innate,  transcendental,  a  priori ,  or  intuitive  ele¬ 
ments  in  knowledge;  Descartes’s  egoistic  basis  of  philosophical 
demonstration,  and  the  more  recent  developments  of  idealism, 
are  at  once  parts  of  metaphysics  and  principles  of  method  in 
its  procedures.  On  the  other  hand,  Plato’s  contributions  to 
the  principles  of  method,  in  his  doctrine  of  definition  and  his 
examples  of  dialectic  art;  Aristotle’s  objections  to  Plato’s  real¬ 
ism,  which  were  the  foundations  of  scholastic  nominalism,  and 
the  ontological  or  universal  axioms  on  which  Aristotle  based 
his  theory  and  precepts  of  syllogism;  his  defense  of  induction 
as  the  basis  of  axioms  and  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  truths; 
and  the  various  precepts  of  philosophical  procedure  proposed 


LE IVES'S  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE  AND  MIND . 


by  Descartes,  Bacon,  Leibnitz,  and  by  Locke,  Newton,  and 
thew  modern  followers,  all  belong  to  the  general  doctrine  of 
method,  which,  so  far  from  being  peculiar  to  what  is  now 
called  metaphysics,  is  really  more  characteristic  of  the  modem 
sciences  and  of  the  Positive  philosophy. 

That  vague  and  ill-defined  body  of  doctrine  which  is  none 
the  less  distinctly  felt  by  all  modern  students  of  philosophy  to 
be  in  a  sort  of  antagonism  to  the  spirit  of  the  modern  sciences 
and  to  the  Positive  philosophy,  cannot,  therefore,  be  clearly 
distinguished  by  a  marked  difference  of  method.  Its  distinc¬ 
tion  is  really  more  fundamental,  and  relates  to  original  motives 
rather  than  to  differences  of  method  in  research.  Yet  it  is  true 
that  this  distinction  of  motives  affects  method  very  materially 
and  results  in  marked  differences  in  modes  of  thought.  Mod¬ 
ern  metaphysics  disregards  many  points  of  method  deemed  es¬ 
sential  in  the  Positive  philosophy,  not  because  it  is  ignorant  of 
them,  but  because  they  are  seen  or  felt  to  be  opposed  to  the 
vital  interests  of  the  main  purposes  for  which  metaphysics  is 
studied.  When  schools  of  philosophy  differ,  as  they  do  in  the 
fundamental  division  of  them,  in  respect  to  the  motives  of  their 
questionings  or  the  purposes  of  their  researches,  their  differ¬ 
ences  can  be  rationally  accounted  for  only  by  recognizing  their 
origins  in  differences  of  character  in  philosophers.  Though  it 
may  not  be  strictly  true  that  men  are  born  either  Platonists  or 
Aristotelians,  it  is  certain  that  those  who  take  the  most  active 
part  in  the  philosophical  discussions  of  their  day  have  enlisted 
early  in  life  in  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  great  schools,  inspired 
predominately  by  one  or  the  other  of  two  distinct  sets  of  phil¬ 
osophical  motives,  which  we  may  characterize  briefly  as 
motives  of  defense  in  questioned  sentiments,  and  motives  of 
scientific  or  utilitarian  inquisitiveness.  The  points  of  method 
or  doctrine  which  suit  either  attitude  of  mind  are  those  it 
adopts  and  pursues;  and  in  modern  times  the  notion  has  come 
in  vogue,  and  received  the  sanction  of  metaphysics,  that  there 
are  really  two  independent  methods  of  equal  generality,  and 
applicable  to  two  distinct  departments  of  human  thought. 

It  would  be  futile  to  classify  systems  of  thought  by  this  dis¬ 
tinction  in  motives,  since  both  sets  of  motives  come  into  play 


368 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


in  every  thinker  whose  doctrines  are  historical,  or  the  out- 
growth  of  the  mutual  criticisms  of  contending  sects  in  the  past. 
Thinkers  not  uncommonly  hold  and  even  advocate,  as  Mr. 
Lewes  has  done,  as  a  Positivist,  for  many  years  (in  writings 
which  therefore  appear  in  marked  contrast  to  his  present  work), 
doctrines  derived  from  the  school  opposed  to  that  in  which 
they  had  become  really  enlisted,  either  by  native  character  or 
early  influences.  This  attitude  having  also  the  appearance  of 
a  judicial  one,  or  manifesting  a  disposition  to  find  the  truth 
between  extreme  views,  is  often  consciously  assumed,  though 
thinkers  arrive  at  it  from  opposite  positions,  and  unconsciously 
bring  to  it  opposite  motives  of  research.  These  motives  would 
determine,  therefore,  grounds  of  division  between  thinkers  who 
really  differ  less  in  fundamental  positions,  either  of  doctrine  or 
method,  than  in  modes  of  thought. 

Mr.  Lewes,  in  his  plea  for  the  higher  speculative  studies,  is 
so  far  a  metaphysician,  or  so  far  retains  the  effects,  in  his  mode 
of  thought,  of  the  early  influences  of  the  Scottish  school,  that  he 
fails  to  distinguish  the  special  causes  or  exigencies  of  meta¬ 
physics  from  what  he  generously  calls  its  “method”;  though  he 
qualifies  it  as  “irrational.”  His  account  of  this  “method”  is 
extremely  vague.  Comte  had  identified  the  doctrines  of  meta¬ 
physics  with  the  once  leading  dogmas  of  realism;  the  assimila¬ 
tion  of  abstractions  to  things ,  or  to  self-existent  and  permanent 
beings,  either  material  or  spiritual,  being  the  common  point  of  de¬ 
parture  in  these  scholastic  speculations.  But  he  did  so  because 
he  believed  these  dogmas  to  take  their  rise  from  an  erroneous  but 
natural  tendency  of  the  mind  in  its  earliest  use  of  abstract 
terms  and  meanings,  or  from  a  vice  of  language,  to  which  the 
mind  is  always  prone,  and  against  which  the  positive  or  scien¬ 
tific  modes  of  thought  and  criticism  are  the  only  safeguards. 
With  this  understanding  of  the  term  he  rejected  metaphysics, 
both  name  and  thing,  from  his  system  of  rational  studies;  and 
with  metaphysics  he  also  condemned  the  allied  studies  of  logic 
and  psychology,  choosing  to  connect  what  he  valued  in  them 
with  the  general  science  of  method,  and  with  that  of  sociology. 
The  English  followers  of  Comte  did  not  accept  the  latter  reforms 
of  positivism.  Logic  and  psychology  still  hold  their  place  in  En- 


LEWES'S  PROBLEMS  OF  LLFE  AND  ALLAN. 


369 

glish  thought,  though  the  decline  of  strictly  logical  studies  (which 
began  long  before  Comte)  had  made  itself  distinctly  felt  in  the 
deterioration  of  British  philosophy,  and  is  still  very  noticeable, 
notwithstanding  the  wide  and  beneficial  effect  of  the  publica¬ 
tion  of  Mill’s  “Logic”  thirty  years  ago.  The  rehabilitation  of 
metaphysics,  both  name  and  thing,  now  proposed  by  Mr. 
Lewes,  appears  to  him  a  step  in  the  same  direction.  He 
wishes  to  restore  what  is  valuable  and  rational  in  the  doctrines 
and  problems  of  metaphysics  to  the  rank  of  a  distinct  science, 
to  which  he  would  give  its  ancient  and  honored  name. 

But,  to  do  this  in  the  interests  of  true  science,  it  is  necessary 
to  exclude  from  metaphysics  the  doctrines  and  problems  which 
are  due  to  its  “irrational  method”;  and  he  separates  these,  at 
least  in  name,  by  calling  them  “  metempirics.”  All  that  we 
have  to  do,  he  says,  is  to  exclude  from  the  problems  of  meta¬ 
physics  the.metempirical  elements,  the  questions  which  in  their 
very  form  demand  more  knowledge  than  experience  can  fur¬ 
nish — all  questions  of  transcendental  origins  and  conditions — 
in  short,  all  arbitrary  questionings,  to  which  gratuitous  assump¬ 
tions  only  can  be  given  in  answer,  and  we  have  left  principles 
and  problems  that  may  be  properly  collected  and  studied  un¬ 
der  the  name  “metaphysics.”  To  these  he  gives  the  taking 
title  of  “  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,”  a  title  which  tacitly  ap¬ 
peals  to  both  of  the  two  sets  of  motives,  scientific  inquisitive¬ 
ness  and  the  sentimental  interests,  which  have  hitherto  divided 
the  speculative  world. 

“Speculative  minds  cannot,”  he  says,  “resist  the  fascination  of  meta¬ 
physics,  even  when  forced  to  admit  that  its  inquiries  are  hopeless.  This 
fact  must  be  taken  into  account,  since  it  makes  refutation  powerless. 
Indeed,  one  may  say,  generally,  that  no  deeply-rooted  tendency  was  ever 
extirpated  by  adverse  argument.  .  .  .  '  Contempt,  ridicule,  argument 

are  all  in  vain  against  tendencies  toward  metaphysical  speculation.  There 
is  but  one  effective  mode  of  displacing  an  error,  and  that  is  to  replace  it  by 
a  conception  which,  while  readily  adjusting  itself  to  conceptions  firmly 
held  on  other  points,  is  seen  to  explain  the  facts  more  completely.” 

We  entirely  agree  with  Mr.  Lewes  that  it  is  idle  to  argue 
against  “  tendencies,”  even  tendencies  to  error;  for  this  would 
be  to  argue  against  human  nature  itself.  It  is  .to  specific  errors 
that  we  ought  to  address  our  arguments;  and  we  ought,  by  di- 


37° 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


viding  the  tendencies — the  erroneous  or  misdirected  from  the 
true,  to  expose  the  false  ones  in  their  consequences,  and  thus 
conquer  them.  The  true  and  false,  or  the  well  and  ill  directed, 
are  naturally  mixed  in  the  speculative  tendencies  of  the  mind. 
To  condemn  all  that  has  been  or  is  now  called  metaphysics 
would,  therefore,  be  on  the  face  of  it  a  rash  procedure.  But  to 
invent  a  new  name  merely  as  a  name  for  the  errors  or  the 
misdirections  in  speculation  which  are  involved  in  its  questions, 
and  for  the  sake  only  of  retaining  metaphysics  as  the  name  of 
scientific  principles  and  problems  that  have  been  or  may  here¬ 
after  be  included  in  the  higher  philosophy,  is  too  much  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  older  metaphysical  principles  of  nomenclature ; 
or,  rather,  is  too  much  like  the  older  and  crude  practice  of  met¬ 
aphysicians,  to  be  cordially  received  as  a  scientific  reform. 
Botanists,  zoologists,  and  chemists  have  made  it  evident  that  a 
distinction,  however  clearly  defined,  is  not  of  value  in  classifi¬ 
cation  unless  it  is  something  more  than  a  distinction.  It  must 
coincide  with  and  be  of  use  as  a  sign  of  other  distinctions — 
that  is,  be  a  mark  of  the  things  distinguished  by  it,  in  order  to 
have  real  value  in  classification. 

Mr.  Lewes  is  so  far  from  recognizing,  in  the  rules  of  philoso¬ 
phizing  followed  by  him,  this  important  modern  addition  to 
scientific  method,  the  disregard  of  which  is  a  chief  cause  of  fu¬ 
tile  hair-splittings  and  aberrations,  both  in  science  and  meta¬ 
physics,  that  he  shows  in  many  parts  of  his  book  a  noticeable 
lack  of  familiarity  with  it.  We  do  not  believe  that  metempirics 
will  ever  become  a  scientific  name,  and  we  are  quite  sure  it 
will  not  be  acceptable  to  metaphysicians.  As  a  literary  inven¬ 
tion  it  is  not  without  merits;  and,  indeed,  the  literary  merits  of 
the  whole  book  are  by  far  its  greatest.  “Metempiric”  is  a 
good  retort  to  the  reproach  of  the  term  “empiric/’  and,  as  a 
ruse  de  guerre,  not  a  bad  device  for  dividing  the  enemy’s  forces. 
Divide  etimpera  is  good  strategy;  and  there  is  practically  much 
satisfaction  in  a  name.  It  is  upon  the  associations  involved  in 
the  term  “metaphysics”  that  the  larger  division  of  modern 
speculative  thinkers  mainly  subsist.  To  deprive  them  of  their 
name  would,  if  practicable,  take  away  the  apparent  defensible¬ 
ness  of  their  last  positions,  namely,  that  their  “method”  is  pecu- 


LEWES'S  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE  AND  MIND. 


371 


liar  to  their  problems;  and  that  the  doctrines  they  maintain,  or 
defend,  are  safely  intrenched  in  the  transcendental  mystery  of 
the  mind’s  birth,  and  are  exempt  from  scientific  criticism. 
“Experience,”  however,  has  also  come  to  be  a  name  so  much 
respected  that  these  thinkers,  anticipating  the  movements  which 
would  appropriate  their  title  to  respectability,  have  already  for 
some  time  made  a  counter  movement,  and  come  to  hold 
that  the  evidence  they  contend  for  as  ultimate  still  lies 
within  the  province  of  experience,  or  is  not  known  beforehand, 
at  least  in  actual  consciousness;  and  to  hold  that  it  is  not 
gathered  from  any  but  the  sources  of  particular  experiences ; 
but  that  intuitive  universal  truths  are,  nevertheless,  not  general¬ 
izations  of  experience,  and  are  not  even  to  be  tested  and  ulti¬ 
mately  evinced  as  such.  Induction  is  allowed  only  a  limited 
range.  Intuition  is  held  to  be  another  and  an  independent 
form  of  experience.  This  adoption  of  the  word  “experience” 
is  in  accordance  with  the  time-honored  practice  in  metaphys¬ 
ics  of  annexing  troublesome  neighbors,  giving  a  vague  and 
metaphysical  expansion  to  the  meanings  of  hostile  words,  and 
thus  destroying  their  critical  powers. 

The  sense  in  which  induction  was  used  by  Aristotle  and  by 
the  best  of  England’s  thinkers  in  the  past,  as  the  basis  both  of 
the  intuitive  and  the  discursive  operations  of  thought,  or  as  be¬ 
ing  involved  in  sensible  perception  and  in  reflective  intuitions, 
or  in  rapid,  habitual,  and  instinctive  judgments  generally,  quite 
as  essentially  as  in  formal  and  consciously  guarded  or  tested 
generalizations,  is  the  sense  in  which  these  metaphysical  think¬ 
ers  reject  induction  as  the  real  basis  of  all  truths;  and  Mr. 
Lewes,  as  well  as  Mr.  Spencer,  M.  Taine,  and  other  late 
eclectics,  weakly  and  confusedly  go  along  with  them — con¬ 
fusedly,  on  account  of  the  present  great  deterioration  of  phil¬ 
osophical  language  in  reference  to  the  questions  common  to 
the  present  time  and  the  old  logicians,  which  the  latter  treated 
with  a  precision  of  philosophical  language  unfortunately  want¬ 
ing  in  the  conceptulastic  terms  and  phraseology  of  the  present 
day.  We  have  grounds  of  hope,  however,  that  the  present 
phase  of  vague  speculation  will  soon  pass  away,  and  that  a 
generation  of  thinkers  will  succeed,  trained  in  so  much  of  the 


372 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


refined  and  effective  terminology  and  mode  of  thought  of  the 
nominalist  logicians  as  Mill’s  “Logic”  has  rescued  from  ob¬ 
livion;  thinkers  who  will  be  able  to  understand  without  con¬ 
fusion  the  nature  of  axioms. 

The  fact  that  axioms  are  capable  of  clear,  distinct,  and  ade¬ 
quate  statement  in  language,  and  are  not  consciously  based  on 
remembered  or  recorded  particulars  of  experience,  but  are  in¬ 
tuitive,  or  habitual  and  rapid,  interpretations  of  valid  meanings 
in  terms ;  the  fact  that  an  axiom  may  at  first  be  merely  one 
among  a  thousand  early  and  spontaneous  generalizations  of 
the  mind;  that  of  these  the  great  majority  are  overthrown  by 
subsequent  experience,  while  the  one  which  becomes  an  axiom, 
meeting  with  no  counter  experience,  but,  coinciding  with  all 
subsequent  experience,  survives,  is  strengthened,  and  becomes 
habitual;  that  it  becomes  so  elementary  and  so  fundamental  a 
habit  that  no  other  habit  or  power  of  thought  can  oppose  it; 
that  it  has  thus  determined  our  powers  of  conception  as  well 
as  our  beliefs  through  experience — these  facts  are  in  strict  ac¬ 
cordance  with  the  Aristotelian  doctrine  that  axioms  are  based 
upon  inductions,  although  they  are  not  the  results  of  a  formal 
and  consciously  guarded  procedure  in  accordance  with  the 
canons  of  inductive  logic.  In  their  primary  signification  and 
in  this  connection  the  terms  “induction”  and  “inductive”  refer 
directly  to  evidences,  and  not  to  any  special  means  and  proc¬ 
esses  of  collating  and  interpreting  them.  Writers  of  the  sort 
we  have  characterized  continually  confound  these  two  mean¬ 
ings.  So,  also,  they  confound  the  meanings,  one  valid  and 
the  other  not  so,  in  the  terms  “intuition”  and  “intuitive.”  Mr. 
Lewes,  after  having  distinctly  contrasted  (pp.  342-348)  intui¬ 
tive  and  discursive  judgments,  and  characterized  the  former  as 
rapid  or  habitual  inferences,  adds  shortly  afterwards  (p.  356) 
that  he  does  “  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  adopting  the  view 
that  axioms  are  founded  on  induction;  on  the  contrary,”  he 
says,  “  I  hold  them  to  be  founded  on  intuition.  They  are 
founded  on  experience,  because  intuition  is  empirical.” 

Intuition  in  its  proper  meaning  of  rapid,  instinctive  judgment, 
whether  in  the  objective  sensible  perception  of  relatively  con¬ 
crete  matters,  or  in  the  most  abstract,  differs  equally  from  in- 


/ 


LEWES'S  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE  AND  MIND . 


373 


ductive  and  deductive  processes  of  conscious  inference.  But 
there  is  no  contrast  or  alternative  between  intuition  and  induc¬ 
tion  in  reference  to  ultimate  grounds  of  belief,  except  in 
the  spurious  metaphysical  meaning  of  “intuition”;  which 
Mr.  Lewes  has,  it  therefore  appears,  confusedly  adopted,  while 
seeming  to  hold  his  former  positions  as  a  positivist.  Induction 
in  one  of  its  meanings,  as  a  process  of  conscious  generalization, 
and  intuition,  as  another  form  of  judgment,  are  only  contrasted 
as  judgments  ‘  the  one  consciously  and  the  other  unconsciously 
determined,  on  the  occasion  of  making  the  judgment,  by  past 
particulars  of  experience.  If  Mr.  Lewes  had  been  a  purist  in 
philosophy  he  might,  perhaps,  escape  from  this  objection,  on 
the  ground  that  what  is  meant  by  the  phrase,  “  grounds  of  a 
belief,”  is  not  the  unconscious  but  the  concious  causes  of  it;  the 
facts  or  reasons  from  which  we  infer  it.  What  is  properly  meant, 
however,  by  affirming  particulars  of  experience  to  be  the  ground 
of  belief  in  axioms,  is  not  that  these  particulars  are  present  indi¬ 
vidually  in  memory  on  every  occasion  of  making  such  a  judg¬ 
ment;  but  only  that  they  are  the  proper  tests  of  validity  in  an  ul¬ 
timate  philosophical  examination  of  axiomatic  truths;  and  are,  as 
they  occur,  the  actual  and  conscious  causes  of  the  judgments, 
an\  ’  of  their  growing  certitude,  and  of  the  growing  precision  of 
meaning  in  the  terms  by  which  they  are  expressed ;  though  in¬ 
dividually  they  are  not  retained  or  recalled  in  memory. 

So  far,  however,  are  our  author’s  statements  from  being  en¬ 
titled  to  careful  consideration  on  the  ground  of  precision  in  the 
use  of  philosophical  terms,  that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  what 
we  should  have  to  say  about  his  book,  if  we  had  space  to  say 
it,  would  relate  to  obscurities  growing  out  of  his  inattention  to 
ambiguities  and  vagueness  in  philosophical  language.  Thus, 
he  follows  a  bad  late  use  of  the  term  a  priori ;  which  properly, 
and  in  Kant,  means  a  logical  ground  or  cause  of  knowledge; 
and  he  applies  the  term  to  inherited,  organized,  or  instinct¬ 
ive  tendencies  to  the  association  of  particulars  in  experience, 
or  to  “  aptitudes  for  thought  ” ;  to  which  Kant  properly  refuses 
the  name  a  priori  (p.  410).  Again,  from  not  seeing  an  am¬ 
biguity  in  the  word  knowledge,  he  discovers  (p.  405  )  what  ap¬ 
pears  to  him  a  contradiction  in  Kant’s  doctrine;  which  seems 


374 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


to  assert  that  “ all  knowledge  begins  with  experience”  a  pos¬ 
teriori ,  and  yet  asserts  that  “ some  knowledge  is.  anteced¬ 
ent  to  and  independent  of  experience.”  Our  author  surely 
cannot  have  failed  to  meet  in  his  extensive  studies  with  the 
distinction  in  metaphysics  between  the  commencement  or  in¬ 
troduction,  and  the  source  (  exordium  et  origo ),  of  knowledge ; 
as  well  as  the  distinction  of  actual  or  present  knowledge  and 
that  which  we  are  said  to  possess  in  memory,  although  we  are 
not  at  the  time  thinking  of  it.  Yet  he  seems  to  have  forgotten 

these  distinctions.  All  that  Kant  maintains  is  that  a  knowl- 

/ 

edge  like  that  of  memory,  a  knowledge  in  posse ,  of  which,  as 
he  thinks,  experience  cannot  be  the  source ,  is  involved,  and 
may  be  recognized,  in  the  actual  judgments  of  experience;  but 
is  not  recognized  before  experience;  or  except  as  a  for??i  given 
to  the  matter  of  experience — a  doctrine  vague  enough,  we  ad¬ 
mit,  in  meaning,  and  doubtless  gratuitous  in  fact,  but  not  self¬ 
contradictory.  In  short,  Mr.  Lewes’s  book  is  full  of  illus¬ 
trations  of  the  importance  of  improving  metaphysics,  not  as  a 
positive  science,  but  as  a  dialectic  art;  an  art  allied  both  to 
logic  and  to  lexicography.  There  are,  indeed,  such  treatises  in 
existence,  which  are  much  less  interesting  than  Mr.  Lewes’s 
book.  Such  treatises  are  generally,  and  ought  to  be,  as  dry  as 
a  dictionary,  but  do  not  the  less  deserve  attention,  as  correct¬ 
ives  of  the  current  loose  thinking  on  the  most  abstract  subjects. 


McCOSH  ON  TYNDALL* 


Among  the  natural  consequences  of  the  sin  committed  by 
Professor  Tyndall  in  the  hardihood  of  his  late  Belfast  address,- 
is  the  revival  by  it  of  the  inextinguishable  flame  of  metaphysic¬ 
al  controversy.  That  the  address  was  not  fit,  in  the  nature  of 
things — to  say  nothing  of  the  conventions,  the  common  or  un¬ 
written  laws  of  scientific  societies,  which  the  author  violated — 
appears  by  the  consequence  that  the  most  fitting  reply  to  it 
comes  from  Dr.  McCosh.f  Such  popular  organizations  as  the 
British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  were  copied 
from  the  aims  and  disciplines  of  the  elite  among  modern  scien¬ 
tific  societies.  These  societies  are,  in  a  word,  schools  of  Ba- 
conism,  designed  to  embody  all  that  was  of  value  in  the 
thought  and  spirit  of  Bacon — namely,  a  protest  against  tradi¬ 
tional  authority  in  science,  with,  of  course,  a  recommendation 
of  induction  and  of  the  inductive  sciences  for  their  value  in  the 
arts  of  life.  As  to  method  in  induction,  Bacon’s  teaching  was 
of  comparatively  little  value.  His  really  distinguishing  service 
was  in  accomplishing  a  more  or  less  complete  and  enduring 
severance,  at  least  in  British  thought,  of  physical  science  from 
scholastic  philosophy,  and  from  all  traditions  of  more  ancient 
thought.  One  of  the  most  interesting  consequences  of  this 
movement  is  that  the  word  “philosophy,”  and  even  the  name 
“natural  philosophy,”  have  distinctly  different  meanings  in  En¬ 
glish  and  in  the  continental  languages.  The  body  of  ancient 
traditional  thought  was  so  completely  routed  that  its  name, 


*  From  The  Nation,  April  22,  1875. 

t  “Ideas  in  Nature  overlooked  by  Dr.  Tyndall:  being  an  Examination  of  Dr.  Tyndall’s 
Belfast  Address.  By  James  McCosh,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.”  1875. 

“  The  Scottish  Philosophy,  Biographical,  Expository,  Critical,  from  Hutcheson  to 
Hamilton.  By  James  McCosh,  LL.  D.,  D.  D.  ”  1875. 


376 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSLONS. 


Philosophy,  lost  its  meaning,  and  became  appropriated  to  the 
knowledge  and  pursuits  which  in  ancient  times  divine  philos¬ 
ophy  disdained.  Socrates,  it  is  said,  brought  down  philosophy 
from  the  clouds;  and  Continental  thinkers  have  reproached 
the  English  for  having  degraded  her  to  the  kitchen.  This  rec¬ 
ognition  of  the  dignity  of  the  useful  and  of  the  authority  of 
induction,  but  still  more  the  subtler  perceptions  of  method  in 
induction  by  later  English  thinkers,  and  especially  in  the  Posi¬ 
tivism  of  Locke,  Newton,  Herschel,  and  J.  S.  Mill,  have  more 
than  anything  else  given  the  English  their  eminence  in  modern 
science.  The  restraints  of  the  speculative  spirit  in  scientific 
pursuits,  determined  mainly  by  a  desire  for  peace  with  Theol¬ 
ogy  and  Philosophy,  and  accomplished  by  a  division  of  prov¬ 
inces,  have  been  the  chief  cause  of  the  easy  triumphs  of  induct¬ 
ive  evidences  in  the  modern  sciences  of  physics,  astronomy, 
chemistry,  and  even  geology  and  biology,  over  an  opposition 
which,  when  roused,  has  carried  with  it  the  strength  of  a  desper¬ 
ate  self-defense  and  all  the  gigantic  forces  of  tradition.  The  best 
British  thinkers,  therefore,  from  Newton  to  Darwin,  have  re¬ 
spected  this  peace ;  and  Dr.  Tyndall  has  put  himself  out  of 
this  category  by  the  performance  that  relegates  him  to  the  ten¬ 
der  mercies  of  Dr.  McCosh. 

As  spectators  of  the  combat,  we  may,  however,  forget  the 
rash  occasion  which  brought  our  scientific  hero  into  this  arena, 
and  extend  a  sympathy  to  him  in  this  relation  which  we  with¬ 
held  from  him  as  the  retiring  president  of  the  British  Associa¬ 
tion.  In  the  prefaces  to  his  published  address,  Tyndall  charges 
some  of  his  critics  with  “  a  spirit  of  bitterness  which  desires, 
with  a  fervor  inexpressible  in  words,  my  eternal  ill.”  Dr.  Mc¬ 
Cosh  “  happens  to  know  of  some  of  them,  that  they  are  pray¬ 
ing  for  him,  in  all  humility  and  tenderness,  that  he  and  all  oth¬ 
ers  who  have  come  under  his  influence  may  be  kept  from  all 
evil,  temporal  and  eternal.”  Such  belligerent  magnanimity 
must  be  very  consoling  to  its  object.  To  be  prayed  for  partic¬ 
ularly  by  fellow-mortals  that  we  may  be  delivered  from  delib¬ 
erately  cherished,  or  at  least  seriously  considered,  views  on  the 
nature  of  things,  and  not  alone  for  what  we  ourselves  recognize 
as  evils,  may  be  from  a  sympathy  with  a  supposed  unconscious. 


377 


McCOSH  ON  TYNDALL. 

undeveloped  better-self  in  us ;  but  to  us,  our  conscious  selves, 
it  seems  scarcely  different,  except  in  degree,  from  a  sympathy 
and  a  wish  for  our  eternal  welfare  which  would  burn  us  at  the 
stake.  Indeed,  the  attitude  is  not  very  unlike  that  of  picking 
up  the  fagots  for  a  spiritual  cremation,  of  which  the  material 
symbol  is  now  forbidden  by  civilized  opinion  and  law.  To 
use  the  language  of  kindliness  and  magnanimity  when  every 
page  manifests  an  intense,  though  smothered,  odium  theolo- 
gicum ,  conceals  nothing,  and  repels  more  effectively  than  the 
most  open  hostility.  Expressions  of  petty  spite,  depreciatory 
epithets,  intimations  of  ill-opinion,  readiness  to  credit  evil  re¬ 
ports  of  those  who  hold  unorthodox  opinions  in  philosophy, 
and  misinterpretations  of  every  sign  of  weakness  in  them — 
these  characterize  Dr.  McCosh’s  treatment  of  those  thinkers, 
included  in  his  latest  published  biographies  of  Scottish  philoso¬ 
phers,  who  differ  from  him  in  fundamental  views.  If  his  ob¬ 
ject — supposing  him  to  have  an  object  in  this — were  simply 
to  frighten  the  faithful  from  any  contact  with  the  unholy,  we 
can  see  how  he  might  effectively  keep  them  faithful  through 
ignorance;  but  if  he  thinks  in  this  way  to  win  any  one  to  his 
standard,  we  think  he  greatly  mistakes  the  nature  of  the  sceptic. 
He  calls  attention  in  his  preface  to  the  fact  “  that  in  this  paper, 
under  none  of  its  forms,  have  I  charged  Professor  Tyndall  with 
being  an  atheist”;  and  near  the  close  of  his  paper  he  an¬ 
nounces  that  “  I  make  no  inquiry  into  the  personal  beliefs  of  Dr. 
Tyndall,”  though  in  the  preface  he  had  professed  to  believe 
that  Tyndall’s  feelings  are  not  fixedly  bad:  “At  present  very 
wavering  and  uncertain — -feelings,  rather  than  convictions  found¬ 
ed  on  evidence.”  Dr.  McCosh  here  makes  use  of  the  “  extenuat¬ 
ing  method,”  the  eiro?ieia  of  Aristotle’s  rhetoric,  though  with 
ineffective  art.  His  restraint  from  this  fearful  accusation  is 
made  up  for  by  a  zeal  going  greatly  beyond  due  accuracy 
of  thought  and  exposition,  in  his  preparation  of  the  case  for 
whosoever  may  thereby  be  stimulated  to  prefer  the  charge. 

We  have  space  only  for  the  examination  of  one  great  con¬ 
fusion  of  thought  which  runs  through  not  only  this  paper  but 
much  of  the  criticism  in  his  biographical  work  on  the  “  Scottish 
Philosophy,”  wherever  he  treats  of  the  opinions  of  the  “scep¬ 
tics”  of  his  native  land. 


378 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


Lord  Bacon  is  Dr.  McCosh’s  model  in  philosophizing,  and; 
however  marked  may  be  the  differences,  there  is  a  striking  sim¬ 
ilarity  between  their  minds.  The  great  point  of  sympathy  is  in 
Bacon’s  demonstrative,  aggressive,  and  rather  effusive  profes¬ 
sions  of  theism.  This  wins  for  Bacon  the  enthusiasm  of  such 
a  disciple  for  “the  comprehensiveness  of  his  mighty  mind”; 
and  is  likewise  the  measure  with  Dr.  McCosh  of  the  minds 
which  he  treats  favorably  in  his  biographies.  Now,  Bacon  in 
his  model  inquiry  which  occupies  so  large  a  space  in  the 
“Novum  Organum,” — the  inquiry  into  the  form  of  heat, — 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  heat  is  a  kind  of  motion ;  meaning, 
of  course,  not  the  feeling  of  heat,  but  the  conditions  of  the 
feeling.  Dr.  McCosh  would  be  the  last  to  charge  Bacon  with 
atheism  for  this  verbal  ellipsis.  Nor  do  we  suppose  that  he 
would  be  alarmed  by  the  confusing  ambiguities  of  the  words 
light,  sound,  taste,  touch,  and  the  like,  which  are  used  by  all 
modern  philosophers  to  express  two  totally  dissimilar  natures, 
the  tremors  of  ether  and  air,  with  the  chemical  and  mechanical 
properties  of  bodies  in  contact  with  special  organs  of  sense, 
and  the  sensations  of  light,  sound,  etc.,  of  which  these  hom- 
onymical  words  are  also  the  names;  a  part  of  the  cause  and 
its  effect  having  the  same  names  though  wholly  different  in 
nature.  Nor  again  do  we  suppose  that  he  would  take  alarm 
at  the  inclusion,  in  such  names,  of  the  other  physical  conditions 
of  a  conscious  product  or  sensation — namely,  the  movements 
cxr  changes  in  living  nervous  tissues,  which  are  the  more  imme¬ 
diate  conditions  of  the  production  of  a  sensation.  Mr.  J.  S. 
Mill,  however,  in  his  “  Logic,”  takes  to  task  a  philosopher  of  his 
own  school  for  defining  an  idea  or  notion  as  “a  contraction, 
motion,  or  configuration  of  the  fibres  which  constitute  the  im¬ 
mediate  organ  of  sense.”  “Our  notions ,”  Mill  exclaims,  “a 
configuration  of  fibres !  What  kind  of  philosopher  must  he  be 
who  thinks  that  a  phenomenon  is  defined  to  be  the  conditions 
on  which  he  supposes  it  to  depend?”  What  sort  of  philoso¬ 
pher  must  this  one  be,  we  may  add,  who  not  only  makes  this 
confusion  in  his  imputations  of  opinion  to  scientific  philoso¬ 
phers,  ancient  and  modern,  but  intimates  that  the  gravest  de¬ 
fects  not  only  of  mind  but  of  character  are  implied  by  it  ? 


McCOSH  ON  TYNDALL. 


3  79 


The  poverty  of  philosophical  language,  rather  than  such  fatuity, 
would  have  been  the  more  charitable  account  of  what  is 
charged  as  materialism  against  these  thinkers.  No  philoso¬ 
pher  of  note  among  them,  we  are  sure,  ever  seriously  thought 
that  atoms  by  their  collocations  and  movements  explain  ( in 
the  sense  of  unfolding  the  essential  natures  of)  “sensation, 
judgment,  reason;  of  love,  passion,  resolution.”  None  ever 
attempted,  as  Dr.  McCosh  intimates  that  Tyndall  has  done, 
to  “  account  in  this  way  for  the  affection  of  a  mother  for  her 
son,  of  a  patriot  for  his  country,  of  a  Christian  for  his  Saviour.” 
No  one  ever  supposed  that,  “aggregate  them  [the  atoms]  as 
you  choose,  and  let  them  dance  as  they  will,”  there  is  “  any 
power  in ‘them  to  generate  [in  the  sense  of  producing  their  like] 
the  fancies  of  Shakespeare — his  Hamlet,  his  Lady  Macbeth,  his 
King  Lear — the  sublimities  of  Milton,  the  penetration  of  New¬ 
ton,  or  the  moral  grandeur  of  the  death  of  Socrates.”  Yet  Dr. 
McCosh  calls  Tyndall  to  account  for  so  doing  in  these  grave 
terms:  “What — to  employ  the  very  mildest  form  of  rebuke — 
can  be  the  use  of  devising  hypotheses  which  have  not  even  the 
semblance  of  explaining  the  phenomena?  In  the  interest  of 
science,  not  to  speak  of  religion,  it  is  of  moment  at  this  present 
time  to  lay  an  arrest  on  such  rash  speculations;  and  to  insist 
on  the  scientific  men  refraining  from  what  Bacon  denounces 
as  ‘anticipations  of  nature,’  and  confining  themselves  to  facts 
and  the  co-ordination  of  facts.” 

Dr.  McCosh  is  not  quite  accurate  here  about  what  his  model 
Bacon  recommends.  The  past  errors  which  Bacon  opposed 
he  called  “the  Anticipations  of  Nature”  by  the  mind,  and  in 
place  of  this  recommended  “the  Interpretation  of  Nature,”  or 
“that  which  is  properly  deduced  from  things,”  and  (it  is  to  be 
presumed)  may  include  somewhat  more  than  a  bare  co-ordina¬ 
tion  of  facts.  But  whatever  Bacon  meant  to  “  denounce,”  it  is 
certain  that  the  physical  sciences  which  have  grown  up  since 
his  time  involved  in  their  establishment  a  great  deal  more  of 
“the  picturing  power  of  the  mind,”  which  Tyndall  justly  es¬ 
teems,  than  Dr.  McCosh  is  inclined  to  allow.  But  this  is  a 
comparatively  trivial  error.  The  gravamen  of  his  charge  is 
wholly  mistaken.  Tyndall  publishes  as  an  appendix  to  his  ad- 


3 So  PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS . 

dress  a  lecture  previously  delivered,  in  which  the  doctrine  thus 
imputed  to  him  is  disavowed.  'Dr.  McCosh  refers  to  this  fact, 
but  regards  it  as  either  trivial  or  as  inconsistent  with  the  omi¬ 
nous  meaning  of  that  discovery  in  matter  of  “  the  promise  and 
potency  of  every  quality  of  life”  for  the  “confession”  of  which 
Tyndall  “  abandons  all  disguise.”  In  spite  of  this  lecture  Dr. 
McCosh  thinks  that  Tyndall  “feels  himself  entitled  to  hold 
that  matter,  though  we  cannot  say  how,  may  give  us  all  the  op¬ 
erations  of  understanding  and  will.”  It  is  important  to  un¬ 
derstand  here  in  what  sense  “may  give  us”  is  to  be  taken.  Cer¬ 
tainly  Tyndall  is  no  disciple  of  Lucretius,  or  of  the  great  and  sub¬ 
tle  Greek  physicists,  if  he  holds  that  atoms,  the  primordia,  the  el¬ 
ements,  the  seeds,  or  first-beginnings  of  things  have  the  natures 
of  understanding  and  will.  That  these  are  not  the  properties, 
but  only  the  accidents  (in  the  logical  sense),  of  the  movements 
and  collocations  of  the  elements,  is  the  Lucretian  doctrine. 
Moreover,  “  primordial  elements  ”  does  not  refer  to  remoteness 
in  time  past,  but  to  simplicity  and  unchangeableness  in  present, 
past,  future,  or  the  infinitely  enduring  causes  of  change.  In  other 
words,  what  these  philosophers  sought  to  explain  by  their  theory 
of  atoms  is  not  the  natures  of  the  passing  phenomena  of  sense, 
understanding,  and  will,  but  their  occurrences,  and  the  order 
(such  as  there  is)  in  their  occurrences  as  actualities  or  events. 
Such  phenomena  were  not  regarded  as  consisting  of  the  proper¬ 
ties  of  atoms,  of  size,  weight,  movement;  but  only  as  depending 
for  their  actual  manifestation  on  certain  elemental  collocations 
and  movements.  Modern  physiology  is  in  striking  accordance 
with  these  vague  speculations.  It  does  not,  neither  did  they, 
affirm  that  the  properties  of  matter  (that  is,  the  permanent  and 
universal  natures  of  matter)  define  or  determine  anything  ex¬ 
cept  the  events  of  phenomena.  Neither  were  the  gods  exclud¬ 
ed  by  these  speculations  from  existence,  or  from  the  moral 
interests  and  regards  of  men,  in  accordance  with  their  reputed 
characters.  They  were  only  excluded  from  the  arbitrary  de¬ 
termination  of  the  course  of  events,  or  from  any  other  inter¬ 
ference  than  that  of  being  in  their  consciousness  and  actions 
a  part  of  this  course.  They,  too,  were  dependent  in  their 
thoughts  and  volitions  on  material  conditions.  Whatever  loss 


Me  COSH  ON  TYNDALL . 


381 

of  dignity  or  wound  to  pride  in  men  might  come  from  such 
subjection  to  material  conditions  was  shared,  according  to  this 
philosophy,  by  the  gods.  That  the  conditions  of  the  nervous 
tissues  which  we  vaguely  describe  as  health,  wakefulness,  and 
vigor  are  a  sum  of  material  conditions,  which  occurring  along 
with  other  material  conditions  around  them  determine  partic¬ 
ular  perceptions,  thoughts,  and  volitions  as  mental  events,  is  a 
modern  form  of  the  same  doctrine.  This  does  not  involve, 
however,  the  kind  of  explanation  that  Dr.  McCosh  appears 
to  suppose. 

There  are  two  meanings  of  the  word  “  explanation,”  or,  rath¬ 
er,  two  kinds  of  explanation  involved  in  philosophy,  the  con¬ 
founding  of  which,  not  by  Dr.  McCosh  alone,  but  by  nearly 
all  the  hostile  critics  of  ancient  and  modern  physical  philosophy, 
has  led  to  great  confusion  and  injustice.  To  know  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  the  occurrence  of  anything  in  such  sort  that  we  may 
predict  this  occurrence,  whenever  and  wherever  these  conditions 
are  given,  though  as  phenomena  these  conditions  may  be  in 
their  natures  wholly  unlike  the  effects  of  them,  is  one  mode  of 
explanation.  To  presume  this  mode  to  be  applicable  to  rela¬ 
tions  of  any  nature  in  which  the  conditions  and  phenomena  are 
too  complicated  to  be  fully  known  or  used  for  prediction,  is  to 
make  speculative  employment  of  it.  To  be  able  to  analyze 
or  decompose  a  phenomenon  or  effect  into  its  constituents  is 
another  mode ;  whether  or  not  we  are  able  by  combining  the 
two  modes,  as  in  the  dynamical  sciences,  to  explain  an  effect  as 
the  sum  of  the  several  effects  of  the  constituents  of  its  cause. 
This  most  perfect  kind  of  explanation,  this  combination,  is 
reached  only  in  dynamical  science,  and  was  never  pretended 
to  by  the  clear-headed  Greeks  who  speculated  so  widely  on  the 
nature  of  things.  That  mental  events  and  their  combinations 
are  fully  conditioned,  as  events,  on  material  ones  is  all  that  they 
ever  pretended  to  believe ;  and  in  this  opinion  most  modern 
physiologists  agree  with  them.  These  philosophers  have  fared 
hard  at  the  hands  of  the  aggressive  theists,  their  expounders 
and  critics.  Thus  Bacon,  as  quoted  by  Dr.  McCosh,  says: 
“  Even  that  school  which  is  most  accused  of  atheism  doth  the 
most  demonstrate  religion,  that  is,  the  school  of  Leucippus 


382 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


and  Democritus  and  Epicurus.  For  it  is  a  thousand  times 
more  credible  that  four  mutable  elements  and  one  immutable 
fifth  essence,  duly  and  eternally  placed,  need  no  God,  than  that 
an  army  of  infinite  small  portions  or  seeds  unplaced  should  have 
produced  this  order  and  beauty  without  a  divine  marshal.” 
Bacon  here  implicitly  attributes  to  the  ancient  physicists  that 
conception  of  their  opponent  Anaxagoras,  which  may  be  said 
to  be  the  foundation  of  the  philosophical  theism  of  all  subse¬ 
quent  times.  It  is  common  to  speak  of  Anaxagoras  as  having 
introduced  into  the  philosophy  of  nature  the  nous,  or  the  inde¬ 
pendent  agency  of  intelligence.  It  is  not  so  commonly  seen 
that  he  introduced  along  with  this,  and  in  anthesis  to  it,  a  still 
more  characteristic  idea,  that  of  a  primeval  chaos.  The  anti- 
chaotic  nous  of  Anaxagoras  is  not  that  of  the  physicists  and  the 
pantheists.  The  only  chaos  contemplated  by  the  ancient  atom- 
ists  is  the  one  they  saw  around  them  always  existing ;  one  which 
had  always  existed  in  the  indeterminate  confused  actual  order, 
at  any  time,  of  the  universe  as  a  whole.  Its  particular  orders 
were  regarded  as  accidents ;  that  is,  not  permanent  or  inherent 
properties  of  the  elements.  This  last  conception,  by  the  way, 
has  been  grossly  abused,  accident  being  interpreted  to  mean  an 
absolutely  undetermined  event ;  an  Anaxagorean  accident,  such 
as  might  have  happened  in  that  primeval  chaos,  which  the 
atomists  did  not  believe  in,  when  “  all  things  were  in  a  confused 
heap,”  and  before  “  nous  intervened  to  set  them  in  order.”  That 
“  things  might  all  have  been  such  that  there  was  no  fitness  in 
them,  and  the  most  unfit  might  have  survived,”  is  the  reason 
Dr.  McCosh  gives  for  “  discovering  an  ordinance  of  intelligence 
and  benevolence  in  the  very  circumstance  that  there  is  a  fitness, 
and  that  the  fit  survive.”  So  deeply  imbedded  in  his  intelli¬ 
gence  is  this  conception,  this  essential  idea  of  theism,  the  pri¬ 
meval  chaos,  that  because  he  can  conceive  an  altogether  unde- 
monstrable  condition  of  things  to  have  been  possible,  he  postu¬ 
lates  as  actual  a  cause,  or  a  mode  of  action  in  a  cause,  the  nous, 
which  would  have  defeated  this  possibility — a  very  common  and 
almost  unconscious  kind  of  a  priori  argument. 

It  thus  appears  that  Dr.  McCosh,  not  less  than  Professor 
Tyndall,  “  crosses  the  boundary  of  the  experimental  evidence,” 


McCOSH  ON  TYNDALL. 


383 


and  “  revels  in  hypotheses  about  world-making  and  world 
ending.”  He  “professes,”  indeed,  to  found  his  convictions  in 
a  Baconian  way  on  “  inductions,”  the  name  he  gives  (with¬ 
out  adequately  explaining  the  process)  to  what  most  other 
modern  thinkers  call,  and  try  to  explain  by  the  name,  “  intui¬ 
tions  a  priori In  this  Dr.  McCosh  has  doubtless  confounded 
the  effect  of  repeated  assertions  and  professions  of  belief  with 
the  force  in  producing  universal  beliefs  of  invariably  repeated 
particular  experiences — an  effect  enforced  by  that  modern 
factitious  moral  obligation,  “the  duty  of  belief”;  a  duty 
which  though  urged  upon  us  by  modern  religious  teachers 
with  respect  to  certain  ancient  speculations,  as  of  Anaxagoras, 
Socrates,  and  Plato,  was  far  from  being  felt  or  admitted  by 
these  great  teachers.  Their  service  to  us  was  in  teaching  how 
rather  than  what  to  think  and  believe. 

A  singular  mistake  for  one  who  has  undertaken  to  classify 
modern  thinkers  is  committed  by  Dr.  McCosh  when  he  makes 
Comte  the  founder  of  the  school  to  which  Tyndall,  Spencer, 
Huxley,  Bain,  and  even  Mr.  Darwin  are  assigned.  Two  of 
these  thinkers — Spencer  and  Huxley — have  publicly  disavowed 
and  disproved  any  obligations  to  Comte.  It  would  be  cruel,  if 
it  were  not  absurd,  to  make  Comte  and  Mill  responsible,  as 
Dr.  McCosh  does,  even  in  the  slightest  degree,  for  the  free  use 
of  hypotheses  in  science  made  by  these  thinkers,  and  especially 
the  use  made  by  the  cosmologists  among  them,  by  Spencer  and 
Tyndall,  of  hypotheses  for  “  crossing  the  boundary  of  the  exper¬ 
imental  evidence.”  Comte  all  his  life,  and  Mill  until  late  in  life, 
resisted  even  the  undulatory  theory  of  light,  as  involving  the 
unverifiable  hypothesis  of  a  medium,  though  most  physicists, 
even  in  Comte’s  lifetime,  admitted  the  probability  of  the  theory 
which  is  now  universally  adopted.  It  is  strange  to  see  the  use 
of  hypotheses  in  physical  inquiries  attributed  to  Mill’s  recom¬ 
mendation,  as  it  is  by  Dr.  McCosh.  As  well  might  one  attrib¬ 
ute  the  invention  and  recommendation  of  reasoning  to  Aris¬ 
totle  !  Mill  only  systematized,  in  his  “  Logic,”  what  physicists 
from  Galileo  had  been  constantly  doing;  and  no  one  at  all 
conversant  with  mathematical  and  experimental  researches  is 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  use  of  hypotheses,  as  “  recommend- 


384 


PHIL  0  SO  PHI C A  L  DISC  US  SI  O  NS. 


ed  by  Mill,”  is  indispensable  in  that  “  interpretation  of  nature  ’ 
which  Bacon  recommends.  But  these  hypotheses  are,  for  the 
most  part,  trial-questions — interrogations  of  nature;  they  are 
scaffoldings  which  must  be  taken  down,  as  they  are  succeeded 
by  the  tests,  the  verifications  of  observation  and  experiment; 
they  form  no  part  of  the  finished  structure  of  experimental  phi 
losophy.  Comte  and  Mill,  least  of  all  among  modern  thinkers, 
recommend  their  use  as  bridges  for  “  crossing  the  boundary  of 
the  experimental  evidence,”  whether  by  the  Lucretian  road 
with  Tyndall,  or  on  the  Anaxagorean  highway  with  McCosh. 


r 


SPECULATIVE  DYNAMICS.*  t 


Whether  when  a  body  moves  it  is  proper  to  say  that  it  is  in 
motion,  or  that  the  motion  is  in  it,  is  a  question  often  suggested 
by  the  language  of  even  the  most  guarded  writers  on  mathe¬ 
matical  dynamics,  f  though  the  strictly  mathematical  definitions, 
formulas,  theorems,  and  problems  of  the  science  are  free  from 
any  ambiguity.  With  what  meaning  the  preposition  “  in  ”  is 
used  in  these  expressions  is  a  further  and  more  pertinent  ques¬ 
tion.  If  with  that  meaning  which  the  unmathematical  language 
of  these  writers  seems  to  authorize,  then  they  have  really  exposed 
themselves  and  their  readers  to  the  difficulty  involved  in  Zeno’s 
famous  paradox  of  motion,  namely,  that  since  a  motion  must 
be  either  in  the  place  of  the  moving  body  or  in  some  other 
place,  and  since  the  moving  body  does  not  move  in  its  place, 
and  does  not  move  in  any  other  place,  motion  is  really  a  con¬ 
tradiction,  and  therefore,  according  to  logic,  an  impossibility. 
The  solution  of  the  paradox,  for  which  the  science  of  logic  had 
to  establish  a  distinct  principle,  recognized  that  in  such  expres¬ 
sions  the  preposition  “  in  ”  is  not  properly  used  in  a  locative 
sense,  but  only  in  the  vaguer  sense  of  appertaining  to,  or  being 
predicable  of,  its  object.  That  a  body  in  motion  has  the  attri¬ 
bute  of  motion  (that  is,  the  attribute  of  having  a  continuously- 
changing  distance  from  some  other  body,  or  from  some  position 
which  is  regarded  as  at  rest,  or  as  not  having  this  attribute) ; 

*  From  The  Nation,  June  3,  1875. 

t  “  The  Mechanism  of  the  Universe  and  its  Primary  Effort-exerting  Powers.  By  Au¬ 
gustus  Fendler.”  Wilmington,  Del. :  Printed  by  the  “  Commercial  Printing  Company,” 
1874. 

+  We  follow  Professors  Thomson  and  Tait  in  using  “dynamics  ”  in  a  wide  sense,  in¬ 
cluding  Statics,  in  place  of  “  mechanics,”  which,  though  commonly  used  in  this  sense,  is 
more  properly  the  theory  of  machines  and  mechanical  constructions  than  that  of  the  ab¬ 
stract  principles  of  motion  and  equilibrium. 

W 


386 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISC  US SION S. 


and  the  other  form  of  the  same  fact,  namely,  that  the  motion 
in  the  body  is  an  attribute  of  the  body — are  equivalent  or  en¬ 
tirely  accordant  expressions  of  what  is  signified  by  the  preposi¬ 
tion  “  in.”  Zeno’s  paradox  is  logically  solved  in  such  terms  as 
these :  motion  transcends  the  “  sphere  ”  of  the  locative,  or  is 
distinct  from  both  the  positive  and  negative,  or  the  contradictory 
locative,  meanings  of  “  in.”  It  is  neither  here  nor  there  as  a 
phenomenon,  and  yet  is  not  an  excluded  middle,  since  the  con¬ 
tradiction  of  this  and  some  other  place  is  a  contradiction  in  re¬ 
lations,  both  of  which  are  distinct  from  the  nature  of  motion. 
Nevertheless,  judging  by  the  current  language  (not  mathemat¬ 
ical),  and  the  past  disputes  of  mathematicians  on  the  definitions 
of  force  and  motion — disputes  which,  after  being  settled  with¬ 
in  their  own  province,  have  been  bequeathed  to  unmathematical 
speculators  in  dynamical  philosophy — we  should  be  inclined,  at 
first  sight,  to  allow  that  such  speculators  have  the  warrant  of 
high  authority  for  their  attempts  at  revising  the  fundamental 
conceptions  of  this  science.  Whether  consciously  or  not,  the 
mathematicians  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  unmathematical 
sciolists  of  later  times  were  impelled  by  this  old  paradox  to  a 
solution  of  its  difficulty  by  a  metaphysical  or  non-phenomenal 
conception  of  the  “  force  of  motion,”  so  called,  as  something 
locatively  in  a  moving  body,  constituting  the  substantive  or 
sustaining  cause  of  motion ;  seeing  that  the  phenomenon  itself 
of  motion,  being  a  continuous  change  of  distance  from  a  fixed 
position,  could  no  more  properly  be  in  a  body  than  this  very 
distance  could  be  locatively  in  it. 

Newton  from  the  first,  and  all  competent  mathematicians  of 
a  later  time,  saw  that  the  mathematical  discussion  of  dynamical 
problems  had  no  concern  with  any  such  metaphysical  concep¬ 
tion.  The  supposed  cause  of  the  uniformity  of  motion  in  a 
fixed  direction  which  a  body  has  independently  of  external  re¬ 
lations,  or  vires  impresses ,  is  not  any  part  of  dynamical  science. 
Moreover,  the  causes  of  change  in  the  velocities  and  directions 
of  motion,  or  these  vires  impresses ,  were  conceived  in  a  purely 
phenomenal  or  descriptive  way,  and  measured  by  actually  vis¬ 
ible  and  tangible  quantities.  It  was  not  on  account  of  any 
speculative  inability  in  Newton  to  conceive  a  possible  ulterioj 


SPECULA  TIVE  D  YNAM/CS. 


38  7 


cause  of  gravity  that  he  excluded  from  mathematical  dynamics 
the  search  for  it,  and  remained  contented  with  the  descriptive 
quantitative  law  of  its  action ;  but  simply  because  such  a  re¬ 
search  departed  in  a  direction  just  the  opposite  of  that  which 
led  to  rigorously-demonstrated  explanations  of  the  observed 
phenomena  of  nature.  If  any  of  these  phenomena  could  have 
led,  “  in  a  mathematical  way,”  to  the  law  of  action  in  gravita¬ 
tion,  Newton’s  genius  would  surely  not  have  failed  to  deduce 
it  from  them.  '  He  took  gravity  with  its  law  for  an  ultimate 
fact,  simply  because  it  did  not  follow  as  a  consequence  from 

% 

any  other  observed  laws  in  the  same  manner  of  mathematical 
deduction  in  which  he  had  shown  that  Kepler’s  laws  follow 
from  it  and  from  the  three  laws  of  motion.  But  even  mathe¬ 
maticians,  and  especially  those  of  Germany,  whose  men  of 
science  are  even  to  this  day  more  given  to  metaphysics  than 
those  of  other  nations,  were  for  a  long  time  haunted  by  the 
metaphysical  spectre  of  a  cause  called  the  “force  of  motion,” 
and  supposed  to  be  needed  to  keep  a  body  agoing  as  well  as  to 
set  it  in  motion  or  bring  it  to  rest. 

The  mathematics  of  this  science,  however,  deals  only  with  the 
defined  or  measured  quantitative  phenomenal  conditions  of  per¬ 
sistence  and  change  in  motion ;  and  the  metaphysical  mathema¬ 
ticians  were  so  far  true  to  their  science  as  to  seek  for  a  measure 
of  this  metaphysical  cause  of  motion.  A  fierce  dispute  accord¬ 
ingly  arose  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  was  continued  into 
the  eighteenth,  in  which  the  most  illustrious  men  took  part,  as  to 
whether  the  “  force  of  motion  ”  should  be  measured  or  defined 
by  the  velocity  directly  or  by  the  square  of  the  velocity.  But 
after  a  bitter  contention,  prolonged  by  the  rivalries  of  national 
honor  among  European  scholars,  the  question  was  finally  seen 
to  resolve  itself  into  whether  the  name  vis  viva ,  or  “  force  of 
motion,”  ought  properly  to  be  given  to  one  or  to  the  other  meas¬ 
ure.  For  all  mathematical  and  experimental  purposes,  these 
measures  were  all  in  all,  and  were  perfectly  consistent  as  meas¬ 
ures  of  different  phenomena  or  relations  of  motion,  if  only  called 
by  different  names.  And  it  was  seen  that  dynamical  science 
could  get  along  perfectly  well  without  any  use  of  the  confusing 
word  “  force.”  But  the  word  continues  still  to  have  at  least 


388 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


v 


four  distinct  meanings  in  dynamical  science — technical  mean¬ 
ings  related  to  the  use  of  the  word  in  mathematical  reasonings, 
which  are  never,  however,  confounded  by  mathematicians.  All 
that  is  really  common  to  them  is  a  vague  reference  to  the  pro¬ 
duction  or  persistence  of  states  of  motion  or  rest.  The  real 
gists  of  their  meanings  are  in  the  qualifying  terms  annexed  to 
them,  as  in  the  vis  impressa  of  Newton  or  the  vis  mortna  of 
Leibnitz,  otherwise  called  vis  acceleratrix ,  the  vis  insita  or  vis 
inertia ,  the  vis  viva ,  and  the  vis  motrix.  In  place  of  these 
names,  modern  treatises  often  use,  without  the  substantive  word, 
the  terms  acceleration  (retardation  being  a  minus  or  algebraical¬ 
ly  negative  acceleration);  secondly,  mass  (the  coefficient  of 
velocity,  or  of  its  square,  in  estimating  either) ;  thirdly,  the 
momentum ;  and,  fourthly,  the  energy  of  motion.  But  the  term 
energy  still  has  that  metaphysical  taint  of  vagueness,  even  with 
modem  mathematical  writers,  which  so  long  infected  the  word 
“  force.”  It  is  still  spoken  of,  both  with  reference  to  its  actual 
and  potential  forms,  as  if  it  were  something  locatively  in  the 
moving  body,  or  in  a  body  capable  of  a  defined  motion ;  in¬ 
stead  of  being  only  predicably  in  the  permanent  internal  and 
the  special  external  conditions,  which  mathematically  determine 
relative  movements  and  their  rates  of  change.  It  is  not  sur¬ 
prising  that  an  unmathematical  speculator  in  dynamics  should 
be  misled  by  such  expressions  as  the  following  from  the  eminent 
authors,  Professors  Thomson  and  Tait,  to  which  many  parallel 
expressions  in  other  authors  might  be  added,  namely,  “A  raised 
weight,  a  bent  spring,  compressed  air,  etc.,  are  stores  of  energy 
which  can  be  made  use  of  at  pleasure.”  A  mathematician, 
knowing  in  what  terms  these  antecedent  conditions  of  motion 
are  expressed  and  measured,  understands  them  to  refer  only  to 
sensible  properties  in  these  “  stores,”  together  with  the  restrain¬ 
ing  causes  which  also  have  sensible  measures,  namely,  what 
makes  them  “  stores,”  or  holds  the  weight  up,  or  the  spring  be?it, 
or  the  air  compressed.  It  is  in  the  being  held  up,  or  bent,  or 
compressed — in  these  antecedent  circumstances,  as  well  as  in 
what  is  locatively  in  the  bodies,  that  the  storing  of  energy  con¬ 
sists  ;  and  this  energy  is  also  dependent  in  the  case  of  the  raised 
weight  on  an  equally  sensible  and  measurable  outward  relation, 
namely,  distance  from  the  ground. 


SPECULATIVE  DYNAMICS. 


389 


The  word  “force,”  unqualified,  but  understood  to  be  limited 
to  the  meaning  and  descriptive  measure  of  “  accelerative  force,” 
or  in  a  strictly-defined  and  technical  meaning,  is  still  commonly 
employed  in  treatises  on  dynamics.  Otherwise  it  is  always 
qualified,  as  in  the  “force  of  inertia .”  All  its  uses  in  mathe¬ 
matical  language,  or  the  equivalent  terms,  acceleration,  mass, 
momentum,  and  energy,  refer  to  precise,  unambiguous  defini¬ 
tions  in  the  measures  of  the  phenomena  of  motion,  and  do  not 
refer  to  any  other  substantive  or  noumenal  existence  than  the 
universal  inductive  fact  that  the  phenomena  of  all  actual  move¬ 
ments  in  nature  can  be  clearly,  and  definitely,  or  intelligently 
analyzed  into  phenomena,  and  conditions  of  phenomena,  of 
which  these  terms  denote  the  measures.  In  modern  dynamics, 
the  mathematical  measures  of  actual  phenomena  are  their  real 
essences,  as  scientific  facts.  Even  the  much-derided  Aristot¬ 
elian  doctrine  in  explanation  of  the  various  phenomena  of  suc¬ 
tion — namely,  “  nature’s  abhorrence  of  a  vacuum  ” — might  pass 
muster  in  science  (though  not  now  as  an  ultimate  principle)  if 
a  determination  of  how  much  nature’s  abhorrence  amounts  to 
under  defined  circumstances  were  attached  to  it.  The  real 
fault  of  the  principle  and  its  pretended  explanations  would  be 
paralleled  if  we  should  seek  to  explain  the  movements  of  the 
planets  and  of  falling  bodies  by  “  nature’s  abhorrence  of  divorce 
between  bodies  ” — which  is  about  what  the  word  “  attraction  ” 
meant  to  the  lively  imaginations  of  Newton’s  contemporaries, 
as  with  Huygens — without  estimating,  as  the  Newtonian  law 
of  gravity  does,  how  much  this  abhorrence  amounts  to  under 
given  external  relations.  The  fact  that  nature  has  an  abhor¬ 
rence  of  a  vacuum  mathematically  dependent  on  the  weight  of 
the  liquid  forced  into  it  is  not  impugned  by  the  fact,  subsequent¬ 
ly  discovered,  that  this  weight  is  balanced  by  the  weight  and 
consequent  pressure  of  the  atmosphere,  any  more  than  Kepler’s 
three  descriptive  and  quantitative  laws  were  invalidated  by  the 
subsequent  deduction  of  them  from  the  laws  of  motion  and  of 
gravity.  Kepler’s  laws  served,  indeed,  as  the  most  effective 
inductive  confirmations  of  these  laws  and  their  universality; 
and  Newton’s  law  of  gravity  would  still  hold  the  honored  place 
it  has  in  science  even  if  it  should  in  future  be  shown  to  follow 


39° 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


from  independently  demonstrated  and  simpler,  more  ultimate 
conditions  of  changes  in  motion.  Merely  speculative  explan¬ 
ations  of  it  have  no  honor  at  all;  for  its  merits  are  in  its  being 
a  precise  quantitatively-descriptive  law,  and  on  this  ground 
alone  it  holds  its  place  in  mathematical  dynamics. 

We  have  said  that  the  word  “  force,”  when  used  without 
qualification,  has  come  to  mean  unambiguously  what,  for  the 
sake  of  avoiding  ambiguity,  Newton  called  vis  impressaj  so 
that  in  recent  treatises  the  first  law  of  motion  is  expressed  in 
such  terms  as  these :  “  A  body  under  the  action  of  no  force,  or 
of  balanced  forces,  is  either  at  rest  or  moves  uniformly  in  a 
straight  line.”  Newton’s  words  were  :  “  Nisi  quatenus  a  viribus 
impressis .”  Now,  our  author,  apparently  ignorant  of  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  science,  and  without  any  guidance  from  its  mathe¬ 
matics,  undertakes  to  criticise  such  a  statement  (Section  VI.), 
simply  on  the  ground  that  he  has  chosen,  without  giving  any 
reasons  for  it,  to  give  the  unqualified  word  “  force  ”  a  different 
meaning  in  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  an  axiom  (Axiom  VIII., 
p.  12).  He  means  by  it  the  cause  which  keeps  a  body  agoing 
when  it  moves.  Of  this  cause  modern  dynamical  science  knows 
nothing,  except  the  negative  fact  stated  in  the  first  law  of  mo¬ 
tion,  which  may  be  given  with  even  greater  clearness  without 
using  the  word  “  force  ”  at  all — namely,  that,  independently  of 
properties  through  which  a  body  is  related  to  other  bodies,  or 
independently  of  such  relations,  its  state  of  rest  or  of  uniform 
motion  in  a  fixed  direction  is  unchanged.  Behind  this  fact, 
except  so  far  as  it  serves  to  define  the  word  “  force,”  or  vis  im- 
pressa ,  dynamic  science  does  not  go ;  but  it  goes  forward  with 
this  and  other  facts  to  most  fruitful  results  in  mathematical  de¬ 
ductions,  with  which  our  author  does  not  appear  to  be  at  all 
acquainted.  Another  fact,  the  second  law  of  motion,  which 
again  may  be  fully  expressed  without  the  use  of  “  force,”  is 
that  the  change  in  the  component  of  a  velocity  in  any  direction 
may  be  measured  in  terms  of  a  fixed  property,  namely,  mass, 
and  special  outward  relations,  which  in  general  are  dependent 
simply  on  distances  and  directions. 

Mathematical  dynamics  knows  of  no  bodies  at  rest  in  any 
absolute  sense.  All  the  motions  known  .or  considered  are  rel- 


SPECULATIVE  DYNAMICS. 


391 


ative  motions — namely,  continuous  changes  of  distances  be¬ 
tween  bodies,  or  between  these  and  positions  defined  by  other 
bodies.  It  is  not  known  that  even  the  centre  or  average  posi¬ 
tion  of  all  the  masses  of  the  universe  is  at  rest  in  any  absolute 
sense;  so  that  the  absolute  motion  of  no  body  is  known,  and 
the  “force”  of  our  author  is  without  any  definite  measure  or 
utility  in  mathematical  dynamics.  The  principle  of  relative 
motion  leaves  all  measures  of  motion  considered  as  absolute 
quite  out  of  the  problems  of  this  science,  as  indeed  they  are 
quite  beyond  our  possible  knowledge. 

One  of  the  principles  of  mathematical  dynamics  which  stag¬ 
gers  the  unmathematical  sciolist  more  than  any  other,  and  was 
at  first  one  of  the  greatest  difficulties,  even  with  mathematicians, 
in  the  Newtonian  theory  of  gravity — a  difficulty  repeatedly 
urged,  and  brought  out  from  apparently  independent  medita¬ 
tions  by  anti-Newtonian  heretics — is  the  doctrine  of  “action 
at  a  distance.”  This  action,  the  metaphysicians  say,  is  impos¬ 
sible,  and  they  devote  themselves  to  the  invention  of  media 
through  which  force  and  motion  may  be  communicated,  or 
from  which  it  may  be  collected  (Axiom  VII.,  p.  n),  thinking 
that  thereby  they  are  helping  out  the  mathematical  genius  of 
Newton  by  a  profounder  effort  of  thought  than  he  was  capable 
of.  But  with  metaphysical  action  dynamical  science  has  noth¬ 
ing  to  do.  The  action  at  a  distance,  considered  in  this  science, 
is  simply  a  change  in  motion  measurably  or  mathematically  . de¬ 
pendent  on  (or  a  function  of)  distances  from  bodies,  distances 
of  which  nothing  is  asserted  but  that  they  extend  indefinitely 
beyond  the  masses  or  the  visible  and  tangible  limits  of  bodies. 
“  A  body  cannot  act  where  it  is  not  ” — “  With  all  my  heart,” 
says  Carlyle,  “  only  where  is  it  ?  ”  If  attractive  force  is  an  at¬ 
tribute  of  bodies  (as  it  is  whether  or  not  this  force  depends  on 
an  intangible  and  invisible  medium),  then  the  presence  of 
bodies  at  a  distance  from  their  visible  limits  must  be  assumed, 
so  far  at  least  as  this  attribute  is  concerned.  The  color  of  a 
body  is  familiarly  known  to  be  distinct  from  its  solid  extent, 
volume,  or  mass,  and  is  not  in  the  same  place;  nevertheless,  as 
superficial,  is  still  contiguous  with  its  other  sensible  qualities. 
The  metaphysical  difficulty  of  believing  that  the  attribute  of 


3  92 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


attraction  may  be  still  more  displaced  or  removed  than  color, 
is  a  difficulty  which  disappears  with  its  cause,  namely,  un¬ 
familiarity  with  the  conception.  Patient  study  of  mathematical 
and  experimental  science  has  resolved  many  such  difficulties, 
which  are  not  really  logical  ones ;  for  whether  gravity  will  ever 
come  in  science  to  be  a  legitimately  derived  attribute  or  prop¬ 
erty  of  bodies  acting  through  a  medium,  or  will  forever  remain, 
as  now,  an  ultimate  phenomenal  fact,  there  is  nothing  of  con¬ 
tradiction  or  essential  opposition  to  experience  in  its  asserted 
action  at  a  distance — at  a  distance,  that  is,  not  of  course  from 
where  it  acts,  but  from  the  places  where  other  attributes  of  body 
are  manifested;  that  is,  beyond  its  visible  and  tangible  limits. 
Most  theories  of  a  gravitative  medium  have  been  in  fact  atomic, 
and,  by  the  interposition  of  voids  between  atoms  which  is  thus 
made,  have  really  introduced  the  very  action  at  a  distance 
which  the  theories  were  devised  to  do  away  with.  Indeed,  the 
essential  principle  of  action  at  a  distance  is  a  necessary  conse¬ 
quence  of  the  metaphysical  axiom  (which  we  are  not,  however, 
obliged  by  positive  evidence  to  accept),  that  pure  continuous 
matter  is  incompressible,  as  in  the  supposed  atoms ;  and  though 
this  action  be  only  on  a  molecular  scale,  it  is  no  more  possible 
on  this  scale  than  on  that  larger  one  of  gravitative  action  which 
mathematical  dynamics  is  supposed  to  assume.  But,  as  we 
have  said,  no  such  metaphysical  assumption  is  made  in  this 
science. 

No  student  of  mathematics,  competent  to  pass  an  examina¬ 
tion  in  Newton’s  “  Principia,”  not  only  on  its  definitions,  axioms, 
and  philosophical  scholiums,  but  on  its  mathematical  theorems 
and  problems,  could  read  with  any  profit,  or  even  with  any  pa¬ 
tience,  Mr.  Fendler’s  speculations.  Those  parts  of  the  “  Prin¬ 
cipia,”  or  of  more  modern  treatises,  which  such  thinkers  as  our 
author  appear  to  have  studied,  present  themselves  to  the  student 
who  has  clearly  seen  their  embodiment  in  the  mathematical 
deductions  and  experimental  verifications  of  dynamical  science 
in  a  wholly  different  light  from  that  in  which  such  speculative 
thinkers  take  them  up.  The  laws  or  axioms  and  the  definitions 
of  this  science  are  apparently  considered  by  these  thinkers  as 
constituting  in  themselves  a  complete  body  of  doctrine,  capable 


SPECULA  TIVE  D  YNAMICS . 


393 


of  being  studied  and  criticised  quite  independently  of  any  other 
mathematics  than  what  they  directly  involve,  whereas  they  are 
really  integrant  parts  or  elements  of  a  systematic  deductive 
science;  and  whether  or  not  they  are  evident  at  a  glance 
through  familiar  inductions,  or  by  “intuitions  a  priori ”  (as 
some  thinkers  will  have  it),  they  have  their  truest  proof  in  the 
broadest  possible  tests  of  experience,  through  the  experimental 
and  observational  verifications  of  their  mathematical  conse¬ 
quences.  Of  the  nature  and  force  of  this  kind  of  proof  none 
but  students  of  mathematical  dynamics  and  experimental  phys¬ 
ics  can  be  supposed  to  have  any  adequate  conception.  To  at¬ 
tempt  to  criticise  the  elementary  conceptions  and  first  principles 
of  the  science  in  any  other  way,  and  especially  a  priori,  or  with 
a  simple  reference  to  Vernunft ,  is  really  a  display  of  the  critic’s 
incompetency,  which  is  not  remedied  by  a  reference  of  his  con¬ 
victions  to  ancestral  experience,  or  any  other  modification  of 
the  a  priori  doctrine,  or  any  treatment  of  mathematical  axioms 
as  philosophical  truths.  Several  modern  writers,  more  distin¬ 
guished  than  our  author,  and  especially  of  late  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes 
and  Mr.  H.  Spencer,  have  thus  illustrated  how  a  priori  too  oft¬ 
en  means  no  more  than  ab  ignorantia  et  indolentia.  Such  writers 
appear  to  think  that  the  mathematical  deductions  of  the  science 
are  of  secondary  importance  from  a  philosophical  point  of  view, 
or  are  merely  illustrative  applications  of  philosophical  principles 
to  the  processes  of  nature.  But  instead  of  the  mathematical 
body  of  the  science  being  an  appendage  to  these  principles  as 
to  an  independent  body  of  doctrines,  these  are  themselves 
chosen  and  framed,  so  to  speak,  or  determined  in  their  forms 
and  meanings  with  reference  to  the  mathematics  of  a  systematic 
deductive  science. 


4 


BOOKS  RELATING  TO  THE  THEORY  OF  EVO¬ 
LUTION.* 

A  correspondent  asks  for  information  on  books  relating  to 
the  development  or  evolution  theory,  especially  for  the  book 
“  which  is  not  too  partisan  or  too  technical,  but  gives  the  facts 
and  reasoning  with  reference  to  it  on  both  sides.”  From  a 
literature  which  has  in  the  past  fifteen  years  grown  into  an  ex¬ 
tensive  department  of  bibliography,  we  ought  to  be  able,  if  this 
were  possible  in  any  subjects  of  discussion,  to  select  the  book 
which  fulfills  these  requisites.  Yet  it  would  be  vain  to  seek, 
even  in  Germany,  for  one  which  surpasses  in  these  qualities  the 
foundation  and  first  of  the  series,  namely,  Darwin’s  “  Origin  of 
Species,”  in  which,  and  especially  in  the  last  edition,  1872,  all 
the  scientific  objections  that  have  been  urged  against  the  theory, 
as  it  is  held  by  Darwinians,  are  more  clearly  put  and  fairly  con¬ 
sidered  than  in  any  treatise  we  could  name.  In  no  work  on  a 
subject  of  which  the  scientific  evidence  is  essentially  technical, 
is  the  fault  of  technicality  less  obtrusive ;  and  in  late  editions 
this  is  still  further  remedied  by  a  glossary  of  scientific  terms. 
But  before  we  can  clearly  characterize  other  books  on  this  sub¬ 
ject,  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  grand  division  of  the  department 
into  books  that  are  strictly  (like  Darwin’s),  or  predominantly, 
scientific  and  inductive;  and  those  that  treat  their  subject  as  a 
part,  or  as  the  foundation  even  (like  Mr.  Spencer’s  series),  of 
general  speculative  philosophy,  and  in  connection  with  theology 
and  religion.  Darwin’s  books  have  been  improperly  charac¬ 
terized  as  speculative.  This  is  true  of  them  only  in  the  sense 
in  which  incompletely  verified  scientific  hypotheses  are  called 
speculative;  in  the  sense  in  which  Newton’s  astronomy  was, 


*  From  the  Nation,  February  18,  1875. 


BOOKS  RELATIVE  TO  EVOLUTION. 


395 


until  completely,  or  very  nearly,  verified;  or  (by  a  fairer  in¬ 
stance)  Newton’s  optics,  which,  in  a  main  point,  is  not  verified, 
but  reversed.*  It  is  to  the  subjects  of  Darwin’s  books,  and  not 
to  his  opinions  or  treatment,  that  the  term  speculative  is  ap¬ 
plicable,  if  at  all ;  and  so  far  as  it  is  applicable  as  a  reproach,  it 
applies  equally,  or  even  more,  to  the  opinions  of  his  opponents. 
His  mode  of  treatment  is  strictly  scientific,  Newtonian,  or 
“positive”;  nowhere  dealing  with  disputed  axioms,  or  with 
deductions  from  axioms  laid  down  as  a  p?iori  valid  and  as  if 
they  were  not  disputed ;  nowhere  considering  scientific  theses 
as  either  favorable  or  unfavorable  to  general  philosophical  or 
religious  conclusions,  except,  of  course,  where  religious  teach¬ 
ing,  in  having  prejudged  these  questions  on  other  than  scientific 
grounds,  is  presumed  to  have  exceeded  by  obiter  dicta  its  proper 
jurisdiction.  With  the  great  majority,  however,  of  writers  on 
this  subject  the  names  of  Darwin  and  Spencer  are  closely  as¬ 
sociated  ;  though  to  more  than  one  Aristotelian  master,  and  to 
many  scientific  students  of  the  subjects,  no  two  names  are  more 
widely  separated  by  essential  differences  of  method.  Mr.  Spen¬ 
cer  has  lately  put  forward  the  claim  that  his  method  is  justified 
by  Newton’s  precepts  and  practice.  But,  according  to  the 
judgment  of  the  more  immediate  followers  of  Newton,  the  lead¬ 
ing  physicists  of  to-day,  this  claim  is  not  substantiated. 

The  dispute  is,  however,  quite  aside  from  the  reality  of  the 
distinction  which,  for  bibliographical  purposes,  we  here  lay 
down.  One  of  the  requisitions  of  our- correspondent  is  not  ful¬ 
filled  by  any  book  of  the  properly  speculative  division.  We 
venture  to  assert  that  in  no  department  of  speculative  philoso¬ 
phy,  either  expository  or  historical,  do  treatises  exist  which  fair¬ 
ly  present  the  facts  and  arguments  on  both  sides.  This  virtue 
is  possible  only  within  the  limits  which  scientific,  Newton¬ 
ian,  or  “  positive  ”  method  imposes ;  and  within  his  own  proper 
department  of  natural  science  every  expert  authority  is  a  pos¬ 
itivist,  whether  on  other  subjects  he  denies,  or  ignores,  or  only 

*  Speculative  philosophy  is  properly  metaphysics,  and  proceeds  deductively  from  axi¬ 
oms,  like  Plato’s  or  Kant’s,  or  Mr.  Spencer’s  later  form  of  a  priori  philosophy,  which  he 
professes  to  found,  in  part,  on  the  empirical  facts  of  heredity,  and  thus  give  it  a  scientific 

basis. 


396 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


waives  the  disputed  axioms.  The  essential  characteristic  of 
properly  speculative  as  distinguished  from  scientific  method  is, 
that  the  former  seeks  to  expel  doubt  by  the  furcular  force  of 
the  dilemma  that  unless  one  accepts  as  having  universal  valid¬ 
ity  certain  axioms,  which  it  is  true  are  only  illustrated,  not  veri- 
fied  by  inductive  evidences,  one  is  not  entitled  to  hold  any 
beliefs  at  all  with  any  certainty.  Choice  axioms  are  therefore 
presented,  illustrated ,  and  a  universology  is  deduced  from  them. 
True  scientific  virtue,  on  the  other  hand,  is  to  balance  evidences, 
and  to  bring  doubts  to  civil  terms;  to  resist  the  enthusiasm  of 
these  aggressive  axioms,  and  to  be  contented  with  the  beliefs 
which  are  only  the  most  probable,  or  most  authentic  on  strictly 
inductive  grounds.  Now  in  the  proper  scientific  theory  of 
“  evolution  ” — unhappily  so  called,  as  confounding  it  with  a 
different  mode  of  treatment,  when  any  of  the  successive  pre¬ 
ceding  names,  “  descent  with  modification,”  “  derivation,” 
“  development,”  or  “  transmutation  ”  would  on  this  score  have 
been  better,  notwithstanding  a  temporary  disrepute  in  the 
name — the  scientific  evidence  is  in  great  measure  technical, 
and  a  considerable  part  of  what  has  accumulated  in  the 
past  fifteen  years  is  buried  from  the  general  reader  in  mono¬ 
graphs  of  scientific  publications.  Essays  and  discourses  in 
exposition  of  Darwinism  or  natural  selection  are  far  too  numer¬ 
ous  ;  the  majority  being  better  calculated  to  make  the  author 
shudder  than  to  illuminate  what  is  best  got  from  a  careful  read¬ 
ing  of  his  original  treatise.  Among  brief  and  good  essays  we 
may  mention  Professor  Huxley’s  little  books  on  the  “  Origin  of 
Species,”  and  “  Man’s  Place  in  Nature  ” ;  Mr.  Wallace’s  collec¬ 
tion  of  essays  with  the  title  of  “  Natural  Selection”  (though  some 
of  these  are  too  speculative  to  come  under  the  head  of  natural 
science) ;  and  Mr.  Mivart’s  “  Genesis  of  the  Species,”  which 
though  learned  in  biological  science,  is  in  many  parts  too  spec¬ 
ulative  or  un-Newtonian  to  be  mentioned  under  this  head.  We 
may  add  a  little  book  called  the  “  Philosophy  of  Evolution,”  by 
B.  T.  Lowne,  published  in  1873,  by  Van  Voorst,  London, 
which  received  one  of  the  Actonian  prizes  of  the  Royal  Insti¬ 
tution  for  1872.  This  is  mainly  scientific,  though  it  touches  on 
the  general  philosophical  or  speculative  bearings  of  the  subject. 


BOOKS  RELATIVE  TO  EVOLUTION. 


397 


Of  works  more  unequivocally  of  the  speculative  class,  Mr. 
Spencer’s  generally,  but  more  especially  his  “  Biology,”  deserve 
a  first  place.  We  should  not,  however,  in  this  case,  as  we  do 
in  Mr.  Darwin’s,  recommend  the  original  so  much  as  a  recent¬ 
ly  published  exposition,  which,  under  the  title  of  “  Cosmic  Phil¬ 
osophy,”  is  given  by  Mr.  John  Fiske.  In  this  book,  the  disciple 
far  surpasses  the  master  in  readableness  and  skill  of  exposition. 
Of  a  large  subdivision  of  the  speculative  class— -the  books  whose 
aim  is  practical  and  religious,  and  opposed  to  theories  of  evo¬ 
lution — no  one  has  come  to  our  notice  which  fairly  presents 
the  exact  points  or  the  scientific  arguments  of  the  theory  as  it 
is  now  generally  held  by  naturalists,  and  few  of  them  apparent¬ 
ly  deem  it  essential  to  their  aim  to  do  so.  Finally,  we  may 
add  to  the  scientific  division  of  books  on  the  subject  a  recent 
edition  of  Darwin’s  “  Descent  of  Man,”  renewed  by  the  fiery 
ordeal  of  criticism  to  which  the  first  edition  was  subjected,  and 
perfected,  so  far  as  scientific  fairness  and  method  can  go,  by 
the  author’s  unbounded  patience  of  thought  and  research. 


GERMAN  DARWINISM  * 


A  few  months  ago,  in  answer  to  the  inquiries  of  a  corre¬ 
spondent  about  books  on  evolution,  we  took  occasion  to  point 
out  and  emphasize  a  division,  very  fundamental  and  important 
in  our  view,  in  books  on  this  subject,  namely,  between  those 
which  treat  of  it  as  a  theorem  of  natural  history  from  a  Bacon¬ 
ian  or  scientific  point  of  view,  either  mainly  or  exclusively  (con¬ 
fining  themselves  to  scientific  considerations  of  proof),  and  those 
which  treat  of  evolution  as  a  philosophical  thesis  deductively, 
and  as  a  part  of  a  system  of  metaphysics.  Such  a  division 
separates  the  names  of  Darwin  and  Spencer  (which  are  popu¬ 
larly  so  often  pronounced  together)  as  widely  as  any  two  names 
could  be  separated  on  real  grounds  of  distinction. 

Two  little  books  have  lately  been  published  which  we  may 
add  to  the  short  lists  we  gave  of  popular  works  on  evolution — 
one  to  each  list,  f  Professor  Oscar  Schmidt’s  “  Descent  and 
Darwinism  ”  is  essentially  a  scientific  treatise,  though  of  a  type 
which  could  hardly  have  been  produced  originally  in  the  En¬ 
glish  language,  or  from  a  Baconian  stand-point,  and  for  English 
students  of  science.  Of  its  peculiarities  we  propose  to  speak 
further  on.  The  second  book  belongs  to  the  speculative  or 
metaphysical  branch  of  the  subject,  and  consists  of  two  essays : 
one,  translated  from  the  French  of  Dr.  Cazelles,  is  an  account 
of  Mr.  Spencer’s  philosophy,  and  a  comparison  of  it  with  M. 
Comte’s;  the  other  essay  is  a  lecture  by  Dr.  Youmans,  given 

*  From  the  Nation,  September  9,  1875. 

t  “  The  Doctrine  of  Descent  and  Darwinism.  By  Oscar  Schmidt,  Professor  in  the 
University  of  Strasburg,”  1875. 

“Outline  of  the  Evolution-Philosophy.  By  Dr.  M.  E.  Cazelles.  Translated  from  the 
French  by  the  Rev.  O.  B.  Frothingham.  With  an  Appendix  by  E.  L.  Youmans,  M 
D.,”  1875. 


GERMAN  DARWINISM . 


399 


in  defense  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  claims  to  the  credit  of  establishing 
the  doctrine  of  evolution.  Dr.  Cazelles’s  essay  is  an  interesting 
account  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  theories  by  a  fair-minded  disciple — 
by  as  fair-minded  a  disciple  as  one  could  well  be  who  is  at  all 
disposed  to  yield  not  merely  to  claims  on  one’s  assent  for  the 
sake  of  argument  or  system,  but  on  one’s  adhesion  to  undem¬ 
onstrated  beliefs  asserted  to  be  axiomatic  and  irresistible.  But 
a  system  like  Mr.  Spencer’s  is  obliged  to  stand  on  such  positions. 
To  us  it  is  inconceivable  (and  therefore,  according  to  one  of 
Mr.  Spencer’s  criteria,  opposed  to  truth)  that  any  one  should 
not  resent  at  every  step  the  asserted  demonstrations  which  Mr. 
Spencer  parades.  Neither  Dr.  Cazelles  nor  Dr.  Youmans  be¬ 
gins,  however,  far  enough  back  in  their  accounts  of  the  origin 
and  progress  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  thoughts.  These  were  really 
theological  in  origin,  and  have  never  departed  from  the  theo¬ 
logical  stand-point.  For  it  is  one  thing  to  arrive  at  solutions  of 
problems  different  from  those  commonly  held,  or  from  the  or¬ 
thodox,  and  quite  another  thing  to  outgrow  or  be  drawn  by 
legitimate  studies  aside  from  the  problems  themselves.  Believ¬ 
ers  in  philosophies  of  the  unknowable  are  very  much  in  the 
state  of  mind  towards  the  theological  problems  of  their  earlier 
years  in  which  the  converted  savage  is  towards  the  powers  and 
attributes  of  the  idols,  which  his  reason  has  come  to  pronounce 
no  other  in  fact  than  common  blocks  or  stones.  Presenting 
evidence  to  this  effect  does  not  really  diminish  the  savage’s 
practical  belief  that  his  idols  are  pre-eminently  ugly  or  awful, 
and  preternaturally,  though  unapparently,  unphenomenally, 
great.  To  get  rid  of  this  belief  he  must  destroy  the  really  harm¬ 
less  blocks.  To  have  believed  strongly  without  due  evidence 
is  a  state  of  mind  not  easily  convertible,  when  due  evidence  is 
seen  to  be  wanting,  into  one  to  which  the  object  is  absolutely 
without  existence,  but  is  more  commonly  changed  into  one  in 
which  the  old  interest  remains  and  the  object  still  affects  the 
believer  as  an  unconditioned,  unproved,  un demonstrable,  but 
not  less  pragmatically  real  existence ;  and  this  is  the  real  start¬ 
ing-point  of  Mr.  Spencer’s  philosophy. 

Dr.  Cazelles  thinks  that  Mr.  Spencer  “  freed  his  theory  from 
all  metaphysical  attachments  ”  when  he  came  in  the  course  of 


400 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


his  thought  to  dismiss  the  moral  or  teleological  implication  of 
the  word  “  progress,”  and  substituted  the  word  “  evolution  ”  as 
the  more  appropriate  name  for  the  abstraction  which  he  sought 
to  define  as  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  universe;  and  when 
he  also  substituted  in  his  formula  of  definition  the  word  “  inte¬ 
gration  ”  for  the  “  individuation  ”  which  he  first  thought  to  be 
the  true  form  or  idea  of  progress.  The  theory  was  doubtless 
thus  freed  from  attachment  to  any  received  form  of  speculation 
on  the  nature  of  life  and  being,  but  not  at  all  freed  from  the 
scope  and  method  of  metaphysics — this  scope  being  systematic 
omniscience,  including  even  the  unknowable.  The  method  of 
metaphysics  is  to  treat  of  detached  abstractions — that  is,  ab¬ 
stractions  without  check  in  definition  and  precision,  from  the 
concrete  examples  and  embodiments  to  which  Plato,  not  less 
than  Bacon,  pointed  as  indispensable  guides  to  clearness  and 
truth.  There  is  no  profound  difficulty  in  conceiving  what  prog¬ 
ress  means,  if  we  qualify  the  question  by  the  consideration  of 
the  concretes  in  which  progress  is  made ;  not  even  if  we  extend 
our  inquiry  to  the  vague  ranking  of  organisms  as  higher  and 
lower.  The  essential  error  of  metaphysics,  or  “  realism,”  is  not 
merely  in  attributing  to  an  abstraction  a  truly  individual,  thing- 
like  existence,  or  making  it  a  “realized  abstraction,”  but  in 
treating  it  as  if  it  had  such  an  existence — in  other  words,  as  if 
it  had  a  meaning  independently  of  the  things  which  ought  to 
determine  the  true  limits  and  precision  of  its  meaning.  Thus, 
to  apply  the  mechanical  law  of  the  conservation  of  force,  which, 
as  a  scientific  truth,  has  no  meaning  beyond  the  nature  and 
conditions  of  material  movements  (whether  these  are  within  or 
outside  of  an  organism) — to  apply  this  law  analogically  to  all 
sorts  of  changes — to  the  “  movements  ”  of  society,  for  example 
— is,  in  effect,  metaphysics,  and  strips  the  law  of  all  the  merits 
of  truth  it  has  in  the  minds  and  judgments  of  physical  philoso¬ 
phers,  or  of  those  through  whose  experimental  and  mathemat¬ 
ical  researches  it  came  to  have  the  clear,  distinct,  precise,  though 
technical  meanings  in  science  that  constitute  its  only  real  mer¬ 
its.  The  daring  ignorance  which  in  this  speculation  undertook 
to  change  the  name  of  the  principle,  to  call  it  “  persistence  of 
force,”  supposing  the  word  “  force  ”  to  refer  to  an  incognizable 


GERMAN  DARWINISM. 


401 


substratum  of  causation,  and  not,  as  it  really  does  in  science, 
to  various  measurably  interchangeable  forms  of  material  move¬ 
ment  and  antecedent  conditions  of  movement  (wholly  phe¬ 
nomenal),  gave  the  author’s  use  of  the  principle  the  character 
pre-eminently  of  metaphysics.  We  remember,  as  its  most  char¬ 
acteristic  feature,  this  attempt  in  Mr.  Spencer’s  “  First  Princi¬ 
ples  ”  to  eke  out  his  barren  “system  ”  of  abstractions  by  wresting 
and  corrupting  the  very  type  of  unmetaphysical  scientific  truth 
to  the  vagueness  of  a  principle  of  the  “  unknowable.”  The  prin¬ 
ciple  of  the  “  conservation  of  force  ”  does  refer,  indeed,  to  what 
thus  appeared  to  be  hopelessly  unknowable  to  such  a  mind — 
namely,  to  the  experimental  and  mathematical  measures  which 
determine  its  real  meaning  and  proof.  The  climax  of  the  specu¬ 
lation  was  capped  when  this  principle  was  declared  to  be  an 
undemonstrable  but  irresistible  axiom — what  we  cannot  help 
believing  when  we  have  once  conceived  it ! 

In  the  same  way,  “  evolution  ”  is,  with  Mr.  Spencer,  not  a 
theorem  of  inductive  science,  but  a  necessary  truth  deduced 
from  axioms;  and  nothing  can  be  more  mistaken,  therefore, 
than  Dr.  Youmans’s  defense  of  Spencer’s  claim  to  credit  for 
substantiating  a  doctrine  also,  unfortunately,  called  “  evolution  ” 
— the  doctrine  of  the  origin  of  species  by  “  descent,  with  modi¬ 
fication,”  which  is  wholly  due  to  the  labors  of  leading  English 
and  German  naturalists — real  workers  in  experimental  science. 
Dr.  Youmans,  unfortunately  for  his  defense,  quotes  (p.  125) 
Spencer’s  acknowledgment  that,  though  in  1852,  or  earlier,  he 
had  conceived  of  the  principle  of  “  the  survival  of  the  fittest,” 
he  had  not  conceived  of  it  as  producing  the  diversities  of  living 
beings,  or  conceived  of  the  co-operation  of  natural  selection 
with  indefinite  variations  to  produce  species.  But  this  last  is 
the  whole  gist  of  the  matter,  so  far  as  mere  conception  is  con¬ 
cerned  ;  and  the  merit — though  this  is  a  small  part  of  Darwin’s 
merit  in  the  matter — of  this  conception  belongs  so  completely 
to  him  and  to  Mr.  AY allace  that  the  half-glimpses  of  the  con¬ 
ception  by  earlier  writers  are  of  small  account.  Even  Aristotle 
had  conceived  of  the  cause  now  called  natural  selection,  in  one 
of  its  modes  of  action ;  and  two  English  writers — Dr.  Wells  and 
Mr.  Patrick  Matthew  —  in  1813  and  1831,  set  forth  the  agency 


402 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DLSCUSSLONS. 


of  this  cause  in  more  extended  but  still  limited  forms,  the  latter 
coming  very  near  to  the  views  of  Darwin  and  Wallace.  So  far 
as  other  elements  of  the  doctrine  of  descent  ought  to  go  to  any 
single  thinker’s  credit,  they  undoubtedly  belong  to  Lamarck,  to 
whom,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  and  not  to  Mr.  Spen 
cer,  the  following  introductory  remark  by  Dr.  Youmans  is  just 
ly  applicable — namely,  that  while  the  idea  of  evolution  “  was 
passing  through  what  may  be  called  its  stage  of  execration, 
there  was  no  hesitancy  in  according  to  him  all  the  infamy  of  its 
paternity ;  but  when  infamy  is  to  be  changed  to  honor,  by  a 
kind  of  perverse  consistency  of  injustice,  there  turns  out  to  be 
a  good  deal  less  alacrity  in  making  the  revised  award.”  In 
applying  this  remark  to  Mr.  Spencer,  as  to  a  long-tried  martyr, 
Dr.  Youmans  is  himself  guilty  of  the  very  injustice  towards 
Lamarck  of  which  he  complains  in  behalf  of  Spencer ;  for  there 
is  nothing  in  Spencer’s  writing  relating  to  what  is  really  honor¬ 
ed  by  men  of  science  (namely,  the  scientific  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  species)  that  is  not  to  be  credited  either  to  Lamarck 
or  to  Darwin.  This  honor  is  really  awarded  to  the  scientific 
proofs  and  arguments  on  the  subject,  to  which  many  other  nat¬ 
uralists  besides  these  more  eminent  ones,  and  especially  those 
of  Germany,  have  materially  added  by  their  contributions  of 
observation  and  criticism ;  so  that  the  theory  as  it  now  stands, 
which  the  sketch  by  Professor  Schmidt  sets  forth  very  lucidly, 
is  really  a  scientific  theory  only,  and  bears  no  necessary  relation 
to  any  “  system  ”  of  philosophy.  It  is  worth  noticing  here  that 
this  sketch,  though  treating  the  subject  historically,  and  can¬ 
vassing  the  merits  of  various  contributions  to  it  in  this  century 
and  the  last,  in  Germany,  France,  and  England,  nowhere  men¬ 
tions  the  name  or  fame  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer. 

But  in  Germany,  where  the  theory  first  got  the  name  of  Dar¬ 
winism,  it  is  much  more  of  an  “  ism,”  or  connects  itself  much 
more  intimately  with  general  philosophical  views,  than  in  En¬ 
gland  or  America,  except  where  in  these  countries  it  has  got 
confounded  with  Mr.  Spencer’s  speculations.  It  is  to  the  sig¬ 
nificance  of  this  fact — the  character  of  Darwinism  in  Germany 
— that  we  wished  especially  in  this  review  to  call  attention,  as 
an  interesting  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  modern  speculation, 


GERM  A  N  DA  R  W/NISM. 


403 


determining  the  true  place  and  the  essential  influence  of  Bacon 
and  the  Baconian  philosophy.  German  systematic  historians 
of  philosophy  were  never  able  to  make  out  where  to  place  Ba¬ 
con’s  so-called  philosophy,  or  indeed  to  discover  that  he  had  a 
philosophy,  or,  what  has  appeared  to  their  minds  as  the  same 
thing,  a  “system.”  And  indeed  he  had  no  system;  but  by 
marshaling  the  forces  of  criticism  known  to  his  time,  and  rein¬ 
forced  by  his  own  keen  invention,  against  all  systems,  past  and 
prospective,  he  aimed  at  establishing  for  science  a  position  of 
neutrality,  and  at  the  same  time  of  independent  respectability, 
between  the  two  hostile  schools  of  the  Dogmatics  and  the  Em¬ 
piricists,  though  leaning  towards  the  tenets  of  theology  just  so 
far  as  these  had  practical  force  and  value.  He  thus  secured 
the  true  status  for  the  advancement  of  experimental  science,  or 
of  experimental  philosophy,  as  it  came  to  be  called.  He  had 
less  need  of  doing,  and  deserves  less  credit  for  what  is  more 
commonly  credited  to  him — namely,  laying  down  the  rules  of 
scientific  pursuit,  which  the  progress  of  science  has  itself  much 
more  fully  determined.  But  what  could  be  more  fit  as  a  crit¬ 
icism  of  such  a  “  system  ”  as  Mr.  Spencer’s  than  these  aphor¬ 
isms  from  the  first  book  of  the  “  Novum  Organum  ”  ? 

“Some  men  become  attached  to  particular  sciences  and  contemplations, 
either  from  supposing  themselves  the  authors  and  inventors  of  them  or 
from  having  bestowed  the  greatest  pains  upon  such  subjects,  and  thus 
become  most  habituated  to  them.  If  men  of  this  description  apply  them¬ 
selves  to  philosophy  and  contemplations  of  a  universal  nature,  they  wrest 
and  corrupt  them  by  their  preconceived  fancies,  of  which  Aristotle  affords 
us  a  signal  instance,  who  made  his  natural  philosophy  completely  subservi¬ 
ent  to  his  logic,  and  thus  rendered  it  little  more  than  useless  and  disputa¬ 
tious.  The  chemists,  again  [those  of  Bacon’s  time],  have  formed  a  fan¬ 
ciful  philosophy  from  a  few  experiments  of  the  furnace.  Gilbert,  too  [a 
contemporary  of  Bacon’s],  having  employed  himself  most  assiduously  in 
the  consideration  of  the  magnet,  immediately  established  a  system  of 
philosophy  to  coincide  with  his  favorite  pursuit.” 

And  again: 

“In  general,  men  take  for  the  groundwork  of  their  philosophy  either 
too  much  from  a  few  topics  or  too  little  from  many;  in  either  case,  their 
philosophy  is  founded  on  too  narrow  a  basis  of  experiment  and  natural  his¬ 
tory,  and  decides  on  too  scanty  grounds ;  for  the  theoretic  philosopher 
seizes  various  common  circumstances  by  experiment,  without  reducing 
I  them  to  certainty  or  examining  and  frequently  considering  them,  and  re¬ 
lies  for  the  rest  upon  meditation  and  the  activity  of  his  wit.” 


4o4 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


/ 

Under  the  Baconian  regime  the  physical  sciences  have  flour¬ 
ished  in  Great  Britain  for  more  than  two  centuries;  while 
“philosophy,”  as  it  is  known  in  Germany,  both  orthodox  and 
heterodox,  has  dwindled,  except  so  far  as  it  has  had  practical 
holds  and  bearings  on  one  side  through  theology  in  religious 
teachings,  or  has  been  reinforced  from  time  to  time  on  both  sides 
from  the  Continent.  In  Germany  the  position  of  the  experi¬ 
mental  sciences  was  far  otherwise  until  near  the  beginning  of 
this  century.  The  sun  of  Baconism  has  not  even  yet  shone 
fully  on  the  German  mind,  or  except  as  reflected  from  the  posi¬ 
tion  which  the  sciences  have  so  long  held  in  Great  Britain 
and  France,  as  compared  to  the  claims  of  any  systems  of 
philosophy.  That  such  a  system  as  Oken’s  Naturphilosophie , 
with  its  vague  and  meaningless  abstractions,  was  an  influence 
at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  is  not,  however,  so 
surprising  as  perhaps  it  would  be  if  Mr.  Spencer’s  system  (bear¬ 
ing  a  much  greater  resemblance  to  it  than  to  any  theories -of 
Darwin),  had  not  got  such  a  footing  with  English-thinking 
readers  as  it  appears  to  have.  There  is,  however,  at  present 
in  Germany  an  ascetic  school  of  experimental  and  inductive 
science,  which  deprives  itself  of  the  aid  and  guidance  of  theo¬ 
retical  and  deductive  considerations,  in  order  the  more  effectu¬ 
ally  to  protect  itself  from  their  undue  influence.  These  Ge- 
lehrte?i  are  not  true  Baconians ;  but  their  method  might  be  ap¬ 
propriately  named  “  experimentalism.”  Men  of  science  in 
Germany  have  in  general  never  considered  themselves  as  in  a 
respectable  neutral  position  with  reference  to  opposite  systems 
of  philosophy,  and  Professor  Schmidt  in  his  preface  accord¬ 
ingly  consents  to  theory  from  both  sides  in  philosophy,  “Avow 
your  colors”;  and  proceeds  in  his  introduction  to  define  his 
stand-point  sharply  on  severabsubjects  which  cultivated  English 
liberal  thinkers  would  consider  as  irrelevant  to  the  theme  of 
his  book — e.  g,  against  “dualism  ”  in  vital  phenomena,  against 
miracles  and  other  metaphysical  positions. 

Nothing  could  be  more  in  keeping,  on  the  other  hand,  with 
the  refinement  of  modern  English  Baconism  than  the  manner 
in  which  Darwin  presents  the  doctrine  of  descent  in  his  “  Origin 
of  Species”;  and  as  his  scientific  inquiry  did  not  touch  upon 


GERMAN  DARWINISM. 


405 


the  origin  of  life  itself — but  only  on  the  origin  of  its  various 
forms  and  their  relations  to  one  another  and  to  their  surround¬ 
ings,  he  even  took  a  pleasure — a  poetical,  not  a  dogmatic  one, 
surely — in  presenting  in  religious  language  his  sense  of  the 
scientific  mystery  of  life,  speaking  of  “life  with  its  several  pow¬ 
ers  having  been  originally  breathed  by  the  Creator  into  a  few 
forms  or  into  one,”  etc.  Upon  this  often-quoted  passage  our 
author  prosily  remarks  that  “  in  this  Darwin  has  certainly  been 
untrue  to  himself,  and  it  satisfies  neither  those  who  believe  in 
the  continuous  work  of  creation  by  a  personal  God,  nor  the 
partisans  of  natural  evolution.”  We  doubt  if  Darwin  cared  to 
satisfy  any  but  those  who  are  willing  to  mark  the  boundary  by 
a  slight  difference  of  style  in  speaking  of  the  two;  between 
what  is  evident  or  probable  on  experimental  grounds,  and 
what  as  yet  baffles  all  approaches  of  experimental  inquiry.  It 
is  a  little  incongruous  that  one  so  pre-eminently  cautious  and 
painstaking,  so  little  speculative  or  metaphysical  in  the  range 
of  his  researches,  should  be  hailed  as  chief  by  so  large  a  con¬ 
stituency  of  what  really  amounts  to  a  philosophical  school; 
albeit  they  are  the  brightest  minds  of  Germany,  and  pre-emi¬ 
nently  men  of  science.  Professor  Schmidt’s  book  is  in  form, 
however,  and  in  effect,  a  thorough  and  learned  scientific  treat¬ 
ise,  though  he  takes  grounds,  as  the  earlier  French  disciples  of 
Newton  did,  on  matters  extraneous  to  his  scientific  subject. 


A  FRAGMENT  ON  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 


“  Thought  is  a  secretion  of  the  brain  ”  was  the  announcement 
of  a  distinguished  naturalist  and  physiologist,  which  excited 
strong  aversion  to  those  studies  and  views  of  nature  which  could 
thus  degrade,  as  it  appeared  to  do,  the  dignity  of  so  important 
a  function  of  life.  What  was,  probably,  meant,  however,  by 
the  saying,  is  the  physiological  truth  that  the  brain  is  the  organ 
of  thought  in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  in  which  a  gland  is 
the  organ  of  secretions,  or  a  muscle  of  contractions,  or  the 
heart  and  vascular  system  of  circulations.  Thought  no  more 
resembles  a  secretion,  however,  than  this  resembles  a  contrac 
tion,  or  than  either  of  these  resembles  the  movements  and  effects 
of  circulation ;  not  so  much,  indeed,  as  these  three  resemble  each 
other ;  yet,  like  all  these  three  kinds  of  action,  it  is  dependent,  as 
physiological  investigations  show,  on  the  intimate  structure  and 
vital  activity  of  a  special  tissue,  and  its  living  arrangements  and 
special  changes  in  the  brain.  It  is  altogether  likely  that  this  is 
what  was  meant,  and  all  that  was  meant,  by  the  somewhat  sinis¬ 
ter  and  disagreeable  observation  that  “  thought  is  a  secretion 
of  the  brain.”  Men  of  science  sometimes  resort  to  paradoxes, 
figures  of  speech,  concrete  ways  of  stating  truths  in  science, 
which  those  who  are  ignorant  of  the  science  and  its  real  ground 
of  evidence,  but  imagine  that  they  can  judge  of  its  conclu¬ 
sions,  are  almost  sure  to  misunderstand.  Irony  is  not  a  more 
dangerous  figure  than  such  a  use  of  comparisons  and  illus¬ 
trative  figures  of  speech.  Men  of  science  are  supposed,  ex¬ 
cept  by  other  men  of  science,  to  be  literal  and  exact,  and 
unlike  poets,  in  all  their  utterances,  and  when,  as  Professor  Carl 
Vogt  did  in  the  present  instance,  they  seek  to  impress  the 
imagination  by  a  comparison  or  figure  which  is  made  at  the  ex- 


A  FRAGMENT  ON  CAUSE  A  AW  EFFECT. 


4°  7 

pense  of  sentiment,  their  expositions  are  almost  sure  to  be  mis¬ 
conceived,  not  only  by  those  who  are  ignorant  of  their  science 
and  its  grounds  of  inference,  but  even  by  the  more  sentimental 
and  unreflective  student  of  the  science.  What  these  persons 
seem  to  have  supposed  to  be  meant  is  not  that  thought  and  its 
expression  are  allotted  to  the  brain  as  a  secretion  is  to  a  gland, 
but  that  thought  is  a  function  in  life  which,  as  function,  is  of  no 
more  worth  or  dignity  than  the  functions  of  the  kidneys  or  of  a 
cutaneous  gland.  It  is  altogether  probable,  however,  that  a 
certain  feeling  of  impatience  or  contempt  for  the  sentimental 
shallowness  which  could  so  misinterpret  a  scientific  comparison, 
and  confound  it  with  moral  or  practical  considerations  is  a  real 
motive  prompting  to  the  utterance  of  shocking  paradoxes,  in 
disregard  alike  of  the  practical  effect  and  of  scientific  clearness 
and  discrimination  in  the  communications  of  truth.  Native 
common  sense  is  too  apt  to  be  coarse  and  barbarous  in  its  man¬ 
ners,  and  too  inconsiderate  of  weakness. 

We  will  not  venture  to  say  that  this  was  the  case  with  the 
distinguished  biologist  whose  words  have  been  the  cause  of  so 
much  scandal.  The  metaphysical  doctrine  of  materialism  so 
often  charged  against  or  imputed  to  such  scientific  thinkers,  is, 
in  fact,  a  doctrine  quite  foreign  to  science,  quite  out  of  its  range. 
It  belongs,  so  far  as  it  is  intelligible,  to  the  sphere  of  sentiment, 
moral  feeling  and  practical  principles.  A  thinker  is  properly 
called  a  materialist  when  he  concludes  that  his  appetites  and 
passions  and  actions,  having  material  objects  and  results  for 
their  motives,  are  those  most  worthy  of  serious  consideration. 
This  does  not  imply  that  he  believes  that  natures  so  different 
as  thoughts,  sensations,  bodies  liquid  and  solid  and  their  move¬ 
ments,  are  all  fundamentally  of  the  same  nature,  or  are  natures 
some  of  which  are  derived  from  certain  other  more  fundamental 
ones  among  them :  the  spiritual  from  the  material  ones.  It 
does  not  imply  the  opinion  that  thought  is  constituted  of  mo¬ 
tions  or  liquids,  does  not  even  imply  that  the  materialist  thinker 
believes  in,  or  knows  anything  about,  the  truth  that  actual 
thinking  depends,  phenomenally,  on  the  tissues,  structures  and 
conditions  of  an  organ,  as  intimately  as  the  liquid  secretions 
and  the  internal  and  external  movements  of  a  living  body  do. 


408 


PHIL  0  SOPH IC A  L  DISC  US  SI  O  NS. 


Scientific  doctrines  and  investigations  are  exclusively  concerned 
with  connections  in  phenomena  which  are  susceptible  of  dem¬ 
onstration  by  inductive  observation,  and  independent  of  di¬ 
versities  or  resemblances  in  their  hidden  natures,  or  of  any  ques¬ 
tion  about  their  metaphysical  derivation,  or  dependence. 

That  like  produces  like,  and  that  an  effect  must  resemble  its 
cause  are  shallow  scholastic  conceptions,  hasty  blunders  of  gen¬ 
eralization,  which  science  repudiates :  and  with  them  it  repu¬ 
diates  the  scholastic  classification  or  distinction  of  material  and 
spiritual  which  depended  on  these  conceptions,  or  supposed 
that  a  cause  conferred  its  nature  on  its  effect,  or  that  the  con¬ 
ditions  of  a  cause  by  the  combination  of  their  natures  consti¬ 
tuted  the  nature  of  the  effect.  This,  in  a  sense, — in  an  iden¬ 
tical  or  tautological  sense — is  indeed  true ;  but  from  this  true, 
though  identical,  sense  a  false  and  mischievous  one  was  gener¬ 
alized,  and  still  continues  to  corrupt  and  misinterpret  the  results 
of  scientific  observation. 

In  discovering  anything  to  be  the  cause  of.  something  else  we 
have  added  to  our  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  first  thing. 
We,  have  included  in  our  conception  of  this  thing  the  attribute 
of  its  producing,  or  being  the  cause  of,  the  second.  If  now  this 
attribute  of  it  be  the  most  prominent  quality  of  it  in  our  regard, 
as  it  is  in  contemplating  a  cause  qua  cause,  the  effect  may,  in 
an  identical  sense,  be  said  to  be  constituted  by  its  cause.  In 
this  view  all  the  other  attributes  of  the  cause  are  subordinated 
to  the  attribute  of  producing  a  defined  effect,  or  are  regarded 
as  accidental  or  non-essential  attributes,  and  this  is  the  view  of 
the  elementary  relations  in  geometry  and  mathematics  generally 
which  abstraction  produces,  and  is  the  source  of  the  semblance 
of  demonstrative  certainty,  and  objective  necessity  which  math¬ 
ematical  theorems  have.  But  when  science  discovers,  by  in¬ 
duction  or  empirically,  a  new  cause,  the  thing  previously  known 
by  other  attributes,  to  which  is  now  added  the  attribute  of  pro¬ 
ducing  a  given  or  defined  effect,  has  nothing  in  its  essential  or 
previously  defining  attributes  at  all  resembling,  implying  or 
constituting  its  effect,  and  its  newly  discovered  attribute  of  pro¬ 
ducing  this  effect  remains  among  the  added,  subordinate  or  ac¬ 
cidental  attributes  of  such  a  cause.  In  its  essence  it  does  not 


A  FRAGMENT  ON  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 


409 

imply,  suggest  or  resemble  its  effect,  and  in  this  case  the  assertion 
that  the  nature  of  the  cause  determines  or  defines  the  nature  of 
its  effect,  is  clearly  seen,  so  far  as  it  is  true,  to  be  an  identical 
proposition,  meaning  only  that  the  production  of  the  defined 
effect  is  a  part,  and  a  subordinate  part,  of  the  nature  of  a  thing. 
The  definition  of  the  effect  is  added  to  that  of  the  thing  which 
is  its  cause,  at  least  while  we  are  contemplating  this  as  the 
cause  of  the  defined  effect,  and  it  is  only  by  refunding  to  the 
effect  what  we  have  thus  borrowed  from  it  that  we  arrive  at 
the  metaphysician’s  mathematical  conception  of  causation,  the 
transference  of  the  nature  of  one  thing,  that  is,  the  cause,  to 
another  thing,  its  effect.  In  mathematics  the  elements  of  dem¬ 
onstration  are  so  selected,  by  abstraction,  and  their  definition 
so  determined  that  this  transference  of  nature  is  what  is  osten¬ 
sibly  done;  though  it  is  no  more  really  done  than  in  inferring 
consequents  from  antecedents,  or  effects  from  causes  in  so-called 
empirical  science.  In  all  cases  where  this  appears  to  be  the 
character  of  the  connection  of  antecedent  and  consequent,  or 
cause  and  effect,  the  transference  of  the  nature  of  the  cause  to 
its  effect,  is  only  a  restoration  to  the  effect  of  natures  borrowed 
from  it,  or  into  which  it  is  resolvable  by  analysis.  This  fact  is 
observed  especially  in  mathematical  inference,  since  such  infer¬ 
ence  is  always  from  a  complex  antecedent,  or  from  the  combi¬ 
nation  of  a  number  of  conditions,  of  which  the  aggregate  is  not 
known,  named  or  defined  by  any  attributes  other  than  those 
which  by  the  analysis  and  recombinations  of  mathematical  dem¬ 
onstrations  are  shown  to  depend  on  the  most  obvious  and 
elementary  truths  of  our  experience  of  measured  quantities. 
The  protasis  of  a  geometrical  theorem  by  the  aid  of  geometrical 
constructions  previously  shown,  or,  when  ultimate,  simply  as¬ 
sumed  to  be  legitimate,  is  resolved  into  conditions  which,  re¬ 
combined,  are  the  apodosis  or  conclusion  of  the  proposition. 
These  conditions  may  be  used  to  define  the  natures  of  both  the 
antecedent  or  reason,  and  the  consequent,  and  by  this  means 
their  natures  become  identical.  And  both  are  analyzed  ulti¬ 
mately  in  the  course  of  a  series  of  demonstrations  into  a  few 
axioms,  and  these  axiomatic  truths  implied  in  a  few  definitions. 
But  not  only  in  the  mathematical,  but  also  in  the  so-called  em- 
18 


4io 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


pirical  discovery  of  the  connections  of  antecedent  and  conse¬ 
quent,  or  cause  and  effect,  the  antecedent  or  cause  is  almost 
always  a  combination  of  conditions,  or  a  concurrence  of  things, 
relations  and  events,  the  definition  of  which  in  their  aggregate, 
in  merely  logical  consideration,  may  as  well  be  the  effect  which 
follows,  provided  this  is  sufficient  for  defining  it,  as  be  anything 
else ;  since  this  aggregate  of  conditions  is  not  usually  denoted 
by  a  single  name,  the  connotation  of  which  would  define  its 
nature.  Yet  for  practical  and  scientific  purposes  this  aggregate 
is  best  defined  by  the  enumeration  of  the  conditions  that  com¬ 
pose  it,  to  which  observation  adds  the  fact,  or  nature,  that  it 
will  whenever  it  exists  be  followed  by  a  given  or  defined  effect. 
In  this  case  the  conditions  which  constitute  the  cause  do  not 
constitute  the  effect.  They  are  simply  followed  by  the  effect, 
whose  nature  is  wholly  unlike  that  of  its  cause,  or  is  like  and  is 
implied  in  its  cause  only  so  far  as  the  capacity  of  producing  it 
may  be  thought  of  identically  as  a  part  of  the  nature  of  its 
cause.  Thus  a  stone,  or  any  body  denser  (i)  than  the  air,  left 
unsupported  (2)  above  (3)  the  surface  of  the  earth,  will  fall  (4) 
to  it,  is  a  proposition  in  so-called  empirical  science,  in  which 
the  conditions  (1)  (2)  (3)  form  an  aggregate  to  which  if  we  add 
as  a  part  of  its  nature  the  result  (4),  that  is,  add  the  uncondi¬ 
tional  tendency  to  fall  inferred  from  facts  of  observation,  then 
the  fall  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  nature  of  its  anteced¬ 
ent  conditions,  and  it  is  like  or  is  implied  in  this  nature,  quite 
as  truly  as  any  mathematical  consequence  is  necessary,  or  is 
implied  in  mathematical  protases  of  causes  or  antecedents. 
But  ordinarily  physical  philosophers  are  not  so  anxious  to  make 
a  scholastic  show  of  demonstration  as  to  surreptitiously  add  (4) 
to  the  group  of  conditions  (1)  (2)  and  (3)  so  as  to  make  out 
their  proof  on  the  maxims  that  like  produces  like,  or  that  effects 
resemble  or  partake  of  the  nature  of  their  causes.  These  max¬ 
ims  are  really  no  more  true  of  abstract  reasonings  in  the  ele¬ 
mentary  demonstrations  of  geometry;  but  the  aim  of  these 
elementary  reasonings  justifies  the  procedures  which  give  ap¬ 
parent  countenance  to  their  maxims. 

Other  and  real  illustrations  vaguely  related  to  these  apparent 
ones  are  given  in  the  organic  world,  in  the  phenomena  of  as- 


A  FRAGMENT  ON  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 


411 

similation  and  reproduction.  Tissues  turn  nutriment  into 
substances  of  the  same  kind  as  their  own.  Offspring  resemble 
their  parents.  These  facts,  together  with  the  geometrical 
principle  of  Sufficient  Reason  appeared  to  be  sufficient  grounds 
with  scholastic  philosophers  for  generalizing  the  identity  of 
natures  in  real  causes  and  effects.  But,  in  fact,  the  very  oppo¬ 
site  is  true.  Elementary  relations  of  antecedence  and  conse¬ 
quence  are  always  those  of  unlikeness.  A  simple  nature  or 
phenomenon  A  is  invariably  followed  by,  or  joined  with,  an¬ 
other  different  one  B.  Weight  in  a  body  manifested  to  us 
primarily  by  pressure,  or  in  the  tension  of  our  muscles  through 
the  statical  muscular  sense,  is  a  simple  nature  not  resembling 
or  implying  at  all  the  downward  movement  which  always 
follows  it  when  isolated  or  freed  from  other  forces  or  con¬ 
ditions  that  are  of  a  nature  to  produce  an  opposite  effect, 
namely,  an  elastic  movement,  or  bearing  upward,  and  are  as 
unlike  this  effect  as  weight  is  unlike  the  movement  of  falling. 
So  in  the  elements  of  geometry  the  quality  straightness  and 
that  of  minimum  length — duration  or  effort  in  traversing  a  line 
— are  antecedent  and  consequent,  or  else  concomitant  qualities 
which  are  essentially  different  in  their  natures,  but  so  intimately 
joined  in  all  experience  and  in  our  conceptive  powers,  that 
they  seem  to  be  different  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  nature. 
Yet  the  fully  adequate  and  constructive  definition  of  straight 
lines  as  a  sort,  of  which  only  one  can  be  drawn  between  two 
given  points,  does  not  imply  that  this  is  the  shortest  that  can  be 
drawn,  or  the  one  soonest  and  easiest  traversed.  This  con¬ 
structive  definition  joined  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  inclosure 
gives  what  is  often  regarded  as  an  axiom,  the  more  complex 
proposition,  that  twp  straight  lines  cannot  inclose  a  space. 
Starting  with  these  and  other  constructive  definitions,  with  the 
most  general  axioms  of  quantity,  and  with  postulates  of  con¬ 
struction,  and  combining  them  into  more  and  more  complex 
relations  of  magnitudes  in  extension,  we  arrive  at  geometrical 
theorems  in  which  the  protasis  states  the  least  possible  that 
is  essential  as  the  cause,  or  reason,  and  the  apodosis,  or  con¬ 
clusion,  defines  succinctly  the  consequent,  or  effect;  theorems 
in  which  the  connections  of  these  two  terms  is  far  from  obvious, 


412 


PHIL  OS  O  PH/C A  L  DISC  US  SION'S. 


but  is  nevertheless  necessary,  at  least  in  the  abstract,  or  on  the 
supposition  of  precise,  real  definition  and  construction.  Reason 
and  consequent  imply  one  the  other,  or  the  nature  of  a  cause 
determines  that  of  its  effect,  because  one  is  analyzed  into  rela¬ 
tions  already  determined  from  fundamental  propositions,  and 
these  relations  serve  to  define,  or  constitute  the  other.  It  is 
not  true  in  general  that  the  effect  is  like  its  cause,  or  has  a 
nature  determined  by  that  of  its  cause,  but  it  is  true  that  like 
causes  produce  like  effects.  Parents  may  be  said  with  tolera¬ 
ble  correctness  to  be  the  causes  of  their  offspring  resembling 
them,  and  hence  in  this  case  causes  produce  effects  like  them¬ 
selves;  yet  it  is  more  correct  to  say  that  the  offspring  resemble 
their  parents,  because  both  are  products,  though  successive 
ones,  of  similar  real  causes  and  processes,  some  of  which  in  no¬ 
wise  resemble  or  transfer  their  natures  to  their  effects.  Some 
implements  and  agents  of  the  useful  arts  likewise  are  used  to 
make  precisely  similar  implements  and  agents,  as  a  black¬ 
smith’s  hammer  to  produce  a  similar  hammer,  or  fire  to  kindle 
another  one,  or  to  reproduce  the  easily  ignited  substances  with 
which  fires  are  kindled;  yet  in  these  cases  the  agent  that  pro¬ 
duces  its  like  is  not  the  whole  of  the  cause  of  production.  The 
blacksmith’s  forge  and  anvil  and  his  arm  and  sight  are  con- 
causes  or  conditions  of  this  reproduction:  and  the  nature  of 
these  does  not  re-appear  in  the  effect,  unless,  as  we  have  said, 
there  is  added  to  the  conception  of  the  aggregate  of  conditions, 
namely,  to  the  conception  of  the  iron,  forge,  welding-hammer, 
arm  and  sight  combined,  also  the  fact  that  these  will  produce 
an  effect  resembling  one  of  its  conditions.  So  in  organic  re¬ 
production,  the  plant  produces  seed  similar  not  to  itself  but  to 
the  seed  from  which  it  grew,  and  the  new  seed  grows  into  a 
similar  plant :  and  in  this  alternation  in  which  the  immediate 
cause  really  produces  effects  unlike  itself  there  are  many  sub¬ 
ordinate  conditions  and  processes  the  similarity  of  which  in  the 
parent  and  offspring  makes  them  similar  through  successive 
effects  of  similar  causes,  which  are  not  of  the  same  nature  as 
their  effect.  It  is  only  because  one  condition  or  element  of 
the  cause  (the  one  which  resembles  its  effect)  is  singled  out  and, 
in  accordance  with  the  practical  usage  of  common  language, 


A  FRA  GHENT  ON  CA  USE  AND  EFFECT . 


413 


is  called  the  cause,  on  account  of  its  prominence  or  conspicu¬ 
ousness,  that  it  is  at  all  proper  to  speak  of  the  parent  organ¬ 
ism  as  the  cause  of  the  production  of  its  offspring.  The  ex¬ 
istence  of  the  parent  organism  is  a  condition  sine  qua  non  of  the 
production  of  its  offspring,  but  there  are  other  conditions 
equally  indispensable,  the  natures  of  which  in  themselves  are 
in  no  wise  reproduced  in  the  effects. — [1873.] 


JOHN  STUART  MILL— A  COMMEMORATIVE 

NOTICE.* 

The  name  of  John  Stuart  Mill  is  so  intimately  associated 
with  most  of  the  principal  topics  of  modern  philosophical  dis¬ 
cussion,  and  with  the  gravest  of  open  questions,  with  so  many 
of  the  weightiest  subjects  of  unsettled  theory  and  practice, 
that  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  for  which  of  his  many  works 
his  fame  is  at  present  the  greatest  or  is  most  likely  to  endure. 
Those  subjects  in  the  treatment  of  which  the  originality  of  his 
position  was  the  least  were  those  in  which  the  qualities  most 
characteristic  of  him,  and  for  which  his  writings  have  been 
most  esteemed,  appear  in  clearest  light.  Unlike  most  other 
great  thinkers  and  masters  of  dialectics,  he  did  not  seek  to  dis¬ 
play  what  his  own  invention  had  contributed  to  the  arguments, 
or  his  observation  to  the  premises,  in  his  discussion  of  philo¬ 
sophical  and  practical  questions.  On  the  contrary,  he  seemed 
to  be  indifferent  to  the  appearance  and  reputation  of  originality, 
and  actuated  by  a  singleness  of  purpose  and  a  loyalty  to  the 
views  of  his  teachers  in  philosophy  and  science  which  were  in¬ 
consistent  with  motives  of  personal  vanity.  The  exercise  of  his 
admirably  trained  dialectical  powers  doubtless  afforded  him  in¬ 
trinsic  delight,  the  joy  of  play,  or  of  spontaneity  of  power;  but 
it  was  none  the  less  always  subordinated  to  moral  purposes 
which  were  clearly  defined  in  his  youth,  and  loyally  pursued 
through  an  active  intellectual  life  for  nearly  half  a  century. 
But  his  broad  practical  aims  were  never  allowed,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  pervert  the  integrity  and  honesty  of  his  intellect. 
Though  an  advocate  all  his  life,  urging  reasons  for  unpopular 
measures  of  reform,  and  defenses  of  an  unpopular  philosophy 


*  From  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  1873-74. 


JOHN  STUART  MILL. 


415 


or  criticisms  of  the  prevailing  one,  he  was  not  led,  as  advocates 
too  frequently  are,  to  the  indiscriminate  invention  and  use  of 
bad  and  good  arguments.  He  weighed  his  arguments  as  dis¬ 
passionately  as  if  his  aim  had  been  pure  science.  Rarely  have 
strength  of  emotion  and  purpose  and  strength  of  intellect  been 
combined  in  a  thinker  with  such  balance  and  harmony  The 
strength  of  his  moral  emotions  gave  him  insights  or  premises 
which  had  been  overlooked  by  the  previous  thinkers  whose 
views  he  expounded  or  defended.  This  advantage  over  his 
predecessors  was  conspicuous  in  the  form  he  gave  to  the  util¬ 
itarian  theory  of  moral  principles,  and  in  what  was  strictly 
original  in  his  “  Principles  of  Political  Economy.” 

In  the  latter,  the  two  chief  points  of  originality  were,  first, 
his  treatment  of  the  subject  as  a  matter  of  pure  abstract  science, 
like  geometry;  or  as  an  account  of  the  means  which  are  req¬ 
uisite  to  attain  given  ends  in  economics,  or  the  cost  needed  to 
procure  a  given  value,  without  bringing  into  the  discussion  the 
irrelevant  practical  questions,  whether  this  cost  should  be  in¬ 
curred,  or  whether  the  end  were  on  the  whole  desirable. 
These  questions  really  belong  to  other  branches  of  practical 
philosophy, — to  the  sciences  of  legislation,  politics,  and  morals, 
to  which  the  principles  of  political  economy  stand  in  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  an  abstract  science  to  sciences  of  applied  principles  and 
concrete  matters.  But,  secondly,  while  thus  limiting  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  this  science,  he  introduced  into  it  premises  from  the 
moral  nature  of  man,  by  the  omission  of  which  previous  writers 
had  been  led  to  conclusions  in  the  science  of  a  character  gloomy 
and  forbidding.  The  theory  of  population  of  Malthus,  as 
elaborated  by  Ricardo,  seemed  to  subject  the  human  race  to  a 
hopeless  necessity  of  poverty  in  the  masses.  Whether  the 
principle  of  population  did  really  necessitate  this  conclusion 
would  depend,  Mill  taught,  on  more  than  the  capacity  of  a 
soil  to  support  a  maximum  population  with  the  least  subsistence 
needed  for  the  labor  of  production.  The  principle  applies 
without  qualification  to  the  animal  world  in  general  and  to 
savage  men;  but  not  to  progressive  communities  of  men,  in 
which  foresight  and  prudence,  with  moral  and  social  aspira¬ 
tions,  are  forces  of  more  or  less  influence  in  checking  increase 


4  !  6  PHILOSOPHICA  L  DISC  US S IONS. 

in  population,  and  in  improving  the  condition  of  the  masses 
The  poorest,  the  most  wretched,  are  not  in  the  same  condition 
of  want  in  all  communities  of  men.  The  poorest  savage  is 
objectively  in  a  worse  condition  than  the  poorest  civilized 
man. 

Mill  did  not  oppose  the  views  of  his  predecessors  nor  their 
manner  of  treatment,  as  so  many  other  writers  had  done :  he 
carried  out  their  mode  of  regarding  the  science  as  a  physical 
one,  but  with  a  thoroughness  which  brought  to  light  considera¬ 
tions  materially  modifying  their  conclusions.  The  prospects 
of  mankind  are  not  hopeless,  so  long  as  men  are  capable  of  as¬ 
pirations,  foresight  and  hope;  though  they  may  be  gloomy 
enough  in  view  of  the  slow  working  of  these  forces.  What 
these  forces  have  to  oppose,  however,  is  not  the  resistance  of 
an  immovable  necessity,  but  only  the  force  of  inveterate  cus¬ 
toms.  -To  the  sentimental  objection  that  the  laws  of  political 
economy  are  cruel,  and  therefore  not  true,  Mill  humorously 
replied  that  he  knew  of  no  law  more  cruel  than  that  of  gravity, 
which  would  put  us  all  to  death,  were  we  not  always  and  vigil¬ 
antly  on  our  guard  against  it. 

With  a  full,  perhaps  a  too  extreme  appreciation  of  moral 
forces,  as  elements  in  the  problems  of  Political  Economy,  Mill 
still  treated  the  science  as  an  abstract  one ;  as  a  science  of  con¬ 
ditional  propositions,  a  science  applicable  to  the  practical  prob¬ 
lems  of  morals  and  politics,  but  not  in  itself  treating  of  them. 
For  example,  wars  are  expensive,  and  the  establishment  of  a 
new  industry  is  also  an  expense  which  the  principles  of  political 
economy  can  estimate;  but  it  does  so  without  deciding  wheth¬ 
er  war  or  an  industry  ought  under  given  circumstances  to  be 
undertaken. 

Moral  forces  are  real  agents  affecting  the  future  of  the  human 
race.  As  causes  of  effects,  they  are  calculable  forces,  and  as 
means  to  ends  are  proper  subjects  of  the  abstract  science  of 
political  economy.  It  was  because  Mr.  Mill  believed  in  “  mor¬ 
al  causation  ”  (the  name  he  gave  to  what  had  indiscriminately 
been  called  the  doctrine  of  ?iecessity  in  human  volition),  and  be¬ 
cause  he  himself  was  powerfully  and  predominantly  actuated 
throughout  his  life  by  high  moral  considerations,  that  he  gave 


i 


JOHN  ST  HA  AH  MILL. 


417 


such  emphasis  to  the  moral  elements  in  political  economy,  and 
made  room  for  hope — for  a  sober,  rational  hope — respecting 
the  practical  conclusions  and  applications  of  the  science ;  seeing 
that  hope  can  subsist  with  the  desire  that  inspires  it,  provided 
the  desire  is  instrumental  in  effecting  what  is  hoped  for.  It  was 
because  he  believed  in  “  moral  causation  ”  that  he  treated  po¬ 
litical  science,  in  general,  in  the  manner  and  by  the  methods  of 
physical  philosophy,  or  as  a  science  of  causes  and  effects.  He 
believed  that  he  himself  and  his  generation  would  effect  much 
for  the  future  of  mankind.  His  faith  was  that  we  live  in  times 
in  which  broad  principles  of  justice,  persistently  proclaimed, 
end  in  carrying  the  world  with  them. 

His  hopefulness,  generosity,  and  courage,  and  a  chivalric, 
almost  romantic  disposition  in  him,  seemed  to  those  least  ac¬ 
quainted  with  him  inconsistent  with  the  utilitarian  philosophy 
of  morals,  which  he  not  only  professed,  but  earnestly  and  even 
zealously  maintained.  The  “  greatest  happiness  principle  ”  was 
with  him  a  religious  principle,  to  which  every  impulse  in  his 
nature,  high  or  low,  was  subordinated.  It  was  for  him  not  only 
a  test  of  rational  rules  of  conduct  (which  is  all  that  could  be, 
or  was,  claimed  for  it  in  his  philosophy  of  morals),  but  it  be¬ 
came  for  him  a  leading  motive  and  sanction  of  conduct  in  his 
theory  of  life.  That  other  minds  differently  constituted  would 
be  most  effectively  influenced  to  the  nobility  of  right  conduct 
by  other  sanctions  and  motives,  to  which  the  utilitarian  princi¬ 
ple  ought  to  be  regarded  as  only  a  remote  philosophical  test  or 
rational  standard,  was  what  he  believed  and  taught.  Unlike 
Bentham,  his  master  in  practical  philosophy,  he  felt  no  con¬ 
tempt  for  the  claims  of  sentiment,  and  made  no  intolerant  de¬ 
mand  for  toleration.  He  sincerely  welcomed  intelligent  and 
earnest  opposition  with  a  deference  due  to  truth  itself,  and  to  a 
just  regard  for  the  diversities  in  men’s  minds  from  differences 
of  education  and  natural  dispositions.  These  diversities  even 
appeared  to  him  essential  to  the  completeness  of  the  examina¬ 
tion  which  the  evidences  of  truth  demand.  Opinions  positive¬ 
ly  erroneous,  if  intelligent  and  honest,  are  not  without  their 
value,  since  the  progress  of  truth  is  a  succession  of  mistakes 
and  corrections.  Truth  itself,  unassailed  by  erroneous  opinion, 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


41S 

would  soon  degenerate  into  narrowness  and  error.  The  errors 
incident  to  individuality  of  mind  and  character  are  means,  in 
the  attrition  of  discussion,  of  keeping  the  truth  bright  and  un¬ 
tarnished,  and  even  of  bringing  its  purity  to  light.  The  human 
mind  cannot  afford  to  forget  its  past  aberrations.  These,  as 
well  as  its  true  discoveries,  aVe  indispensable  guides;  nor  can 
it  ever  afford  to  begin  from  the  starting-point  in  its  search  for 
truth,  in  accordance  with  the  too  confident  method  of  more 
ambitious  philosophers. 

Such  being  his  loyalty  and  generosity,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Mill  obtained  a  much  wider  acceptance  of  utilitarian  doctrines, 
and  a  more  intelligent  recognition  of  their  real  import,  than 
previous  thinkers  of  his  school  had  secured.  He  redeemed  the 
word  “  utility  ”  from  the  ill-repute  into  which  it  had  fallen,  and 
connected  noble  conceptions  and  motives  with  its  philosophical 
meaning.  It  is  now  no  longer  a  synonym  of  the  ignoble  or 
base,  or  the  name  of  that  quality  in  conduct,  or  in  anything 
which  conduces  to  the  satisfaction  of  desires  common  to  all 
men.  He  made  it  mean  clearly  the  quality  in  human  customs 
and  rules  of  conduct  which  conduces  to  realize  conditions  and 
dispositions  which  for  men  (though  not  for  swine)  are  practica¬ 
ble,  and  are  the  most  desirable ;  their  desirableness  being  tested 
by  the  actual  preference  which  those  who  possess  them  have 
for  them  as  elements  in  their  own  happiness.  This  meaning  of 
utility  includes  the  highest  motives  in  whose  satisfaction  an  in¬ 
dividual’s  happiness  can  consist,  and  not  the  baser  ones  alone ; 
not  even  the  base  ones  at  all,  so  far  as  they  obstruct  the  sources 
of  a  greater  happiness  than  they  can  afford.  It  is  now  no 
longer  a  paradox  to  the  intelligent  student  of  Mill’s  philosophy, 
that  he  should  prefer,  as  he  has  avowed,  the  worst  evil  which 
could  be  inflicted  on  him  against  his  will,  to  the  pains  of  a  vol¬ 
untary  sophistication  of  his  intellect  in  respect  to  the  more  se¬ 
rious  concerns  of  life. 

His  method  led  him  to  conceal  or  at  least  subordinate  to 
his  single  purpose  most  of  what  was  original  in  his  discussions 
of  the  various  philosophical  subjects  to  which  he  gave  his  at¬ 
tention.  Yet  his  studies  in  logic,  ethics,  psychology,  political 
economy  and  politics,  and  even  in  poetry,  are  full  of  valuable 


JOHN  STUART  MILL. 


419 


and  fertile  contributions  of  original  thought;  and  of  that  kind 
of  service  to  philosophy  which  he  most  valued  in  such  writers 
as  Dr.  Brown  and  Archbishop  Whately, — a  kind  of  service 
which  he  believed  would  survive  the  works  of  more  learned 
and  ambitious  thinkers.  A  thorough  preparation  for  his  work, 
to  which  his  education  was  directed  by  his  father,  realized 
what  is  rare  in  modern  times, — a  complete  command  of  the  art 
of  dialectics;  an  art  which  he  believed  to  be  of  the  greatest 
service  in  the  honest  pursuit  of  truth,  though  liable  to  abuse  at 
the  hand  of  the  dishonest  advocate.  His  education  was  like 
that  of  an  ancient  Greek  philosopher, — by  personal  intercourse 
with  other  superior  thinkers.  He  felt  keenly  in  his  later  work, 
as  Plato  had,  “how  much  more  is  to  be  learned  by  discussing 
with  a  man  who  can  question  and  answer,  than  with  a  book 
which  cannot.”  That  he  was  not  educated  at  a  university, 
and  through  the  influences  of  equals  and  coevals  in  intellectual 
and  moral  development,  may  account  for  one  serious  defect  in 
his  powers  of  observation, — a  lack  of  sensibility  to  the  differ¬ 
ences  of  character  in  men  and  between  the  sexes.  So  far  as 
he  did  recognize  these  mental  diversities,  he  prized  them  for 
the  sake  of  truth,  as  he  would  have  prized  the  addition  of  a 
new  sense  to  the  means  of  extending  and  testing  knowledge. 
But  he  did  not  clearly  discriminate  what  was  really  a  reflection, 
as  in  a  mirror,  or  a  quick  anticipation  of  his  own  thoughts  in 
other  minds,  from  true  and  original  observations  by  them. 
This  may  be  accounted  for  in  part  by  his  philosophical  habit, 
as  has  been  observed,  “  of  always  keeping  in  view  mind  in  the 
abstract,  or  men  in  the  aggregate.”  Though  he  mingled  in 
the  affairs  of  life  with  other  men,  taking  part  in  debates  and 
discussions,  private  and  public,  by  speech  and  by  writing,  all 
his  life,  his  disposition  was  still  essentially  that  of  a  recluse. 
He  remained  remote  in  his  intellectual  life  from  the  minds  and 
characters  of  those  with  whom  he  contended,  though  always 
loyal  to  those  from  whom  his  main  doctrines,  his  education, 
and  inspiration  were  derived. 

A  natural  consequence  of  his  private  education  by  a  philos¬ 
opher  (his  father),  and  by  intercourse  with  superior  adult  minds, 
like  Bentham  and  the  political  economist  Say,  was  that  he 


420 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


soon  arrived  at  maturity,  and  was  in  full  possession  of  his  remark¬ 
able  powers  in  early  youth,  able  and  eager  to  exercise  them 
upon  the  most  abtruse  and  difficult  subjects.  Annotations  to 
Bentham’s  “Rationale  of  Judicial  Evidence”  was  his  first 
publicly  acknowledged  literary  work,  performed  before  he  was 
yet  of  age;  though  contributions  to  the  science  of  botany  and 
other  writings  were  labors  of  his  youth.  While  still  in  his 
youth,  before  the  age  of  thirty,  he  advocated  reforms  in  an  ar¬ 
ticle  in  the  “Jurist”  on  “Corporation  and  Church  Property,” 
features  of  which  became  acknowledged  principles  of  legisla¬ 
tion  in  Parliament  many  years  later.  He  lived  to  see  many  of 
the  reforms  proposed  by  Bentham  enacted  as  public  law,  and 
to  take  part  in  Parliament  in  the  furtherance  of  some  of  his 
own  political  ideas.  His  courage  and  hopefulness  were  not 
quixotic,  but  were  sustained  by  real  successes.  These  qualities 
in  his  character,  though  perhaps  properly  described  as  roman¬ 
tic,  or  as  springing  from  an  ardent,  emotional  temperament, 
were  always  tempered  by  his  cooler  reason  and  by  facts.  In 
more  than  one  division  of  special  study  in  science  and  philos¬ 
ophy  he  mastered  facts  and  details  at  first  hand,  or  by  his  own 
observation;  thus  training  his  judgment  and  powers  of  imag¬ 
ination  to  those  habits  of  accuracy  so  essential  in  a  true  edu¬ 
cation,  by  which  knowledge  more  extensive,  more  or  less  super¬ 
ficial,  and  necessarily  at  second  hand,  can  alone  be  adequate¬ 
ly  comprehended.  He  was  prepared  for  writing  an  important 
part  of  his  great  work  on  Logic  by  the  study  of  the  principles, 
requisites,  and  purposes  of  a  rational  classification  in  the  prac¬ 
tical  pursuit  of  botany, — a  favorite  pastime  with  him  through¬ 
out  his  life.  The  use  to  him  of  this  kind  of  knowledge,  as  of 
all  other  kinds  worthy  to  be  called  science,  was  in  its  bearings 
on  other  and  wider  branches  of  knowledge.  He  generalized 
the  principles  exhibited  in  the  natural  system  of  botanical  clas¬ 
sification  to  their  application  “to  all  cases  in  which  mankind 
are  called  upon  to  bring  the  various  parts  of  any  extensive 
subject  into  mental  co-ordination.  They  are  as  much  to  the 
point,”  he  adds,  “when  objects  are  to  be  classed  for  purposes 
of  art  or  business,  as  for  those  of  science.  The  proper  ar¬ 
rangement,  for  example,  of  a  code  of  laws,  depends  on  the 


JOHN  STUART  MILL. 


421 


same  scientific  conditions  as  the  classifications  of  natural  his¬ 
tory  ;  nor  could  there  be  a  better  preparatory  discipline  for  that 
important  function  than  the  study  of  the  principles  of  a  natural 
arrangement,  not  only  in  the  abstract,  but  in  their  actual  ap¬ 
plications  to  the  class  of  phenomena  for  which  they  were  first 
elaborated,  and  which  are  still  the  best  school  for  learning 
their  use.”  To  rightly  divide  and  define  is  divine,  said  Plato; 
yet  it  is  not  an  excellence  by  which  the  divine  is  distinguished 
from  a  human  perfection.  It  is  rather  a  perfection  which  is 
relative  to  human  limits  and  weaknesses. 

The  “mastery  system”  of  studying  a  subject  in  its  facts,  and 
at  first  hand,  was  not  liable  with  Mill  to  degenerate  into  the 
mere  idiotic  pursuit  of  facts,  since  the  character  of  his  mind 
was  already  determined  by  a  strong  philosophical  bias.  Even 
subjects  like  the  fine  arts,  which  are  commonly  and  properly 
regarded  as  affording  ends  in  themselves,  or  sufficient  and 
worthy  motives  to  study,  interested  Mill  as  affording  broad 
principles  and  influences,  extending  beyond  the  immediate  and 
present  delight  they  inspire.  In  his  readings  of  poetry  he 
looked  not  merely  for  beauties  or  for  sympathy,  but  for  princi¬ 
ples,  causes,  and  influences;  for  the  relations  of  it  to  the  times 
in  which  it  appeared.  So  wide  was  the  range  of  his  studies 
and  his  intellectual  sympathies,  that  no  writer  has  given  wiser 
advice  on  the  much  debated  subject  of  education,  or  advice 
more  satisfactory  to  all  parties,  even  to  the  advocates  of  special 
studies. 

Mr.  Mill  was  a  thinker  about  whose  personal  character  and 
circumstances  of  education  the  student  naturally  seeks  to  learn. 
In  such  a  thinker,  these  elements  of  power  are  instinctively  felt 
to  be  of  prime  importance.  They  explain  Mill’s  later  influence 
at  the  universities,  where,  though  not  personally  known,  his 
effect  upon  the  young  men  of  the  most  active  minds,  through 
his  principal  works,  his  Political  Economy  and  his  System  of 
Logic,  became  a  powerful  one,  though  purely  spontaneous; 
for  it  did  not  come  in  by  the  normal  channels  of  the  curricu¬ 
lum.  It  was  with  men  of  the  succeeding  generation  (as  gen¬ 
erally  happens  with  great  innovators  in  science  and  philoso¬ 
phy)  that  his  teachings  were  destined  to  be  fully  appreciated. 


422 


PHIL  0 SO PHI C. A  L  DISC  US S 10 NS. 


But  his  teachings  were  none  of  them  fundamentally  new;  or 
what  was  new  in  them  was,  or  appeared  to  be,  subordinate  to 
what  he  had  avowedly  borrowed  from  previous  thinkers.  H( 
was  neither  the  author  of  a  new  system  of  philosophy,  nor  the 
discoverer  of  a  new  science.  He  can  hardly  be  called,  in 
strictness,  the  advocate  even,  of  any  previous  doctrine  in  phi¬ 
losophy  or  science.  It  was  one  of  his  short-comings  that  he 
took  for  granted  more  than  most  of  his  readers  knew.  His 
starting-point  was  in  advance  of  what  most  of  them  knew,  and 
he  was  thus  unintelligible  to  many  of  the  best  minds  among 
his  coevals.  Starting  from  what  many  of  them  did  not  know, 
he  completed,  carried  out,  and  put  into  a  scientific  form  in  his 
“System  of  Logic,”  and  in  his  “Principles  of  Political  Econo¬ 
my,”  the  views  he  had  adopted  from  his  earlier  teachers  and 
from  his  later  studies. 

It  was  through  his  masterly  style  of  exposition  and  his  skill 
in  dialectics,  and  by  other  traits  of  a  personal  character  to 
which  active  and  original  youth  is  especially  alive,  that  he 
secured  an  unprejudiced  hearing  for  doctrines  in  philosophy 
and  practice  which  had  almost  ceased  to  have  adherents. 
These  doctrines  had  a  century  before,  from  the  time  of  Locke 
(and  before  Hume  had  developed  them  with  such  alarming 
effect  on  existing  beliefs),  become  an  especially  English  philos¬ 
ophy;  but  had  almost  disappeared  through  the  influence  of 
the  Scottish  and  German  reactions  against  Hume.  When  his 
“  System  of  Logic”  was  published,  he  stood  almost  alone  in  his 
opinions.  The  work  was  not  written  in  exposition  or  defense 
of  this  philosophy,  but  in  accordance  with  its  tenets,  which 
were  thus  reduced  to  a  proximate  application,  or  to  a  more 
determinate  or  concrete  form.  A  qualified  nominalism,  thor¬ 
oughly  English,  and  descended  from  the  English  schoolman 
William  of  Ockham,  was  its  philosophical  basis.  He  welcomed 
and  introduced  to  English  readers  the  revival  of  this  phi¬ 
losophy  in  France,  by  Auguste  Comte,  with  whom  he  agreed 
in  many  positions, — more  especially  in  those  which  were  not 
original  with  Comte.  His  accordance  with  Comte  can  hardly 
be  regarded  as  one  of  discipleship,  since  in  most  important 
practical  matters  Mill  dissented  from  the  views  of  the  French 


JOHN  STUART  MILL. 


423 


philosopher.  His  real  allegiance  was  to  the  once  prevalent 
teachings  of  Locke,  and  to  those  of  Berkeley,  Hume,  Brown, 
Hartley,  and  his  father  James  Mill. 

No  modern  thinker  has  striven  more  faithfully  to  restore  and 
build  upon  those  speculations  of  the  past,  which  appeared  to 
him  just  and  true,  or  more  modestly  to  exhibit  and  acknowl¬ 
edge  his  indebtedness  to  previous  thinkers ;  yet,  by  the  excel¬ 
lence  of  his  works,  this  past  has  fallen  to  the  inheritance  of  his 
name  and  fame.  To  give  scientific  form  or  systematic  coher¬ 
ency  to  views  put  forth  unsystematically  by  others,  was  to  give 
soul  and  life  to  doctrines  which  were  thus  made  especially  his 
own.  The  teachings  of  Sir  John  Herschel’s  celebrated  “Dis¬ 
course  on  the  Study  of  Natural  Philosophy”  were  generalized 
by  Mill  into  what  is  his  most  original  contribution  to  logic,  his 
theory  of  induction  and  of  the  inductive  basis  of  all  real  truth. 
From  this  theory,  important  consequences  were  drawn  as  to 
the  nature  and  function  of  syllogistic  inference, — consequences 
from  which  the  philosophical  student  remounts  to  the  philoso¬ 
phy  of  experience  and  the  teachings  of  Hume.  From  Hume 
and  Brown,  again,  he  derives  his  theory  of  causation,  which  he 
connects  with  other  elements  in  his  system,  and  with  illustra¬ 
tions  in  science  in  a  manner  which  has  made  the  theory  pecu¬ 
liarly  his  own.  But  it  would  be  out  of  place  in  this  notice  to 
attempt  an  analysis  of  Mill’s  works.  Our  task  is  only  to  ac¬ 
count  for  his  influence. 

In  politics  he  belonged  to  what  is  called  the  school  of  “phil¬ 
osophical  radicals,”  who  are,  as  he  defined  them,  those  who  in 
politics  follow  the  common  manner  of  philosophers;  who  trust 
neither  to  tradition  nor  to  intuition  for  the  warrant  of  political 
rights  and  duties,  but  base  the  right  to  power  in  the  State  on 
the  ability  to  govern  wisely  and  justly,  and,  seeing  their  coun¬ 
try  badly  governed,  seek  for  the  cause  of  this  evil,  and  for 

means  to  remedy  it.  This  cause  they  found  to  be  in  “the 

* 

Aristocratical  Principle,”  since,  in  the  present  imperfect  condi¬ 
tion  of  human  nature,  no  governing  class  would  attend  to 
those  interests  of  the  many  which  were  in  conflict  with  their 
own,  or  could  be  expected  to  give  to  any  interests  not  their 
own  any  but  a  secondary  consideration.  The  remedy  for  this 


424 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


evil  they  found  in  a  modified  democratic  principle ;  namely, 
the  better  ability  and  disposition  of  the  many  to  look  aftei 
their  own  interests,  than  any  dominant  few  could  have,  or 
would  be  likely  to  have, — provided  the  many,  or  their  repre¬ 
sentatives,  are  enlightened  enough  to  know  their  true  interests 
and  how  to  serve  them.  The  motto  of  this  radicalism  was 
“Enmity  to  the  Aristocratical  Principle.”  From  this  creed 
sprung  Mill’s  ardent  hostility  towards  the  South  in  their  rebel¬ 
lion  against  our  national  government,  and  his  hearty  espousal 
of  extreme  anti-slavery  views. 

But  a  democracy  may  be  tyrannical  towards  minorities,  and, 
if  unchecked,  is  likely  to  become  so;  and,  what  is  worse,  is 
likely  to  become  an  unprincipled  tyrant,  less  influenced  by  con¬ 
siderations  of  justice  or  prudence  than  a  governing  class  would 
be.  This  fear  made  Mill  distrust  extreme  forms  of  democracy 
and  government  by  mere  majorities.  Accordingly,  among  his 
later  works,  his  “  Considerations  on  Representative  Govern¬ 
ment”  undertakes  to  devise  checks  to  the  abuse  of  power  by  ma¬ 
jorities.  But  it  is  evident  that  Mill’s  greatest  trust  was  in  those 
influences  which  have  given  to  communities  the  ability,  and 
thence  the  power  and  right,  to  govern  themselves;  namely, 
their  intelligence  and  moral  integrity,  or  that  which  reduces 
the  necessity  of  government  by  force  to  the  fewest  functions 
and  occasions.  His  famous  essay  on  Liberty  sought  to  estab¬ 
lish,  on  grounds  of  moral  principle,  restraints  of  governmental 
force,  in  whatever  way  it  might  be  exercised,  whether  in  the 
form  of  public  law  or  of  public  opinion;  neither  of  which  in 
any  form  of  government  is  likely  to  be  wiser  beyond  its  proper 
sphere  of  duty  than  those  it  seeks  to  control.  Government  in 
advanced  communities,  capable  of  self-government,  should  not 
be  of  the  parental  type  or  degree  of  power.  Coercion,  which 
in  itself  is  an  evil,  becomes  a  wrong,  where  persuasion,  rational 
discussion,  and  conviction  are  capable  of  effecting  the  same 
ends,  especially  when  these  ends  are  less  urgent  than  the  need 
of  security  and  self-protection  in  a  community,  for  which  it  is 
the  proper  duty  of  government  by  force  to  provide.  To  place 
government  in  the  hands  of  those  sufficiently  intelligent,  whose 
true  interests  are  most  affected  by  it,  and  to  limit  its  province 


JOHN  STUART  MILL. 


425 


and  its  functions  as  much  as  possible,  leaving  as  much  as  pos¬ 
sible  to  non-coercive  agencies,  was  the  simple  abstract  creed 
of  Mill’s  political  philosophy. 

The  essay  on  “Liberty”  and  his  later  essay  on  “The  Sub¬ 
jection  of  Women”  exhibit  the  ardent,  emotional,  enthusiastic, 
perhaps  not  the  soundest,  side  of  Mr.  Mill’s  mental  character 
and  observation  of  human  nature.  Yet  he  cannot  be  said  to 
have  been  without  much  experience  in  the  practical  art  of 
government.  He  was  in  immediate  charge  of  the  “  political 
department,”  so  called,  of  the  East  India  House  for  more  than 
twenty  years.  It  was  during  this  period,  and  in  the  midst  of 
active  employments,  that  his  Logic  and  Political  Economy 
were  written.  Both  were  thought  out  in  the  vigor  of  life  and 
at  the  summit  of  his  powers.  His  mind  and  pen  were  never 
idle.  At  about  the  age  of  fifty,  he  published  selections  from  his 
occasional  short  writings  for  reviews.  These  had  more  than  a 
passing  interest,  since  in  them,  as  in  all  his  writings,  great  and 
often  new  principles  of  criticism  are  lucidly  set  forth.  In  all 
his  writings,  his  judgments  are  valued  by  his  readers,  not  as 
judgments  on  occasional  matters  by  a  current  or  conventional 
standard,  but  as  tests  and  illustrations  of  new  standards  of  criti¬ 
cism,  which  have  a  general  and  enduring  interest,  especially 
to  the  examining  minds  of  youth. 

With  a  tact  almost  feminine,  Mill  avoided  open  war  on  ab¬ 
stract  grounds.  The  principles  of  his  philosophy  were  set  forth 
in  their  applications,  and  were  advocated  by  bringing  them 
down  in  application  to  the  common  sense  or  instinctive,  unan¬ 
alyzed  judgments  of  his  readers.  His  conclusions  in  psychol¬ 
ogy  and  on  the  fundamental  principles  of  philosophy  were 
nowhere  systematically  set  forth.  In  his  Logic,  they  were 
rather  assumed,  and  made  the  setting  of  his  views  of  the  sci¬ 
ence,  than  defended  on  general  grounds;  though,  from  his 
criticisms  of  adverse  views  on  the  principles  of  Logic,  it  was 
sufficiently  apparent  what  his  philosophy  and  psychological 
doctrines  were. 

English  speaking  and  reading  people  had  so  completely  for¬ 
gotten,  or  had  so  obscurely  understood  the  arguments  of  their 
greatest  thinkers,  that  the  inroad  of  German  speculation  had 


426 


PHILOSOPHICAL  DISCUSSIONS. 


almost  overwhelmed  the  protest  of  these  thinkers  against  the 
a  priori  philosophy.  English-speaking  people  are  not  n  eta- 
physical,  and  Mill  respected  their  prejudice.  But  when  the 
philosophy  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  professing  to  combine  the 
Scottish  and  German  reactions  against  Hume  with  what  sci¬ 
ence  had  demonstrated  as  the  necessary  limits  of  human 
knowledge,  was  about  to  become  the  prevalent  philosophy  of 
England  and  America,  it  was  not  merely  an  opportunity,  but 
almost  a  necessity,  for  the  representative  of  the  greatest  En¬ 
glish  thinkers  (himself  among  the  greatest),  to  re-examine  the 
claims  of  the  a  priori  philosophy,  and  either  to  acknowledge 
the  failure  of  his  own  attempt  to  revive  the  doctrines  of  his 
predecessors,  or  to  refute  and  overthrow  their  most  powerful 
British  antagonist.  Accordingly  Mill’s  “ Examination- of  Sir 
William  Hamilton’s  Philosophy,”  published  in  1865,  when  he 
was  nearly  sixty  years  old,  but  in  the  full  vigor  and  maturity 
of  his  powers,  was  his  greatest  effort  in  polemical  writing. 
That  the  reputation  of  Sir  William  Hamilton  as  a  thinker  was 
greatly  diminished  by  this  examination  cannot  be  doubted. 
Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  pendulum  of  philosophical 
opinion  has  begun,  through  Mill’s  clear  expositions  and  vigor¬ 
ous  defense  of  the  Experience  philosophy,  to  move  again  to¬ 
wards  what  was  a  century  and  a  half  ago  the  prevalent  English 
philosophy.  That  its  future  movements  will  be  less  extreme  in 
either  direction,  and  that  the  amplitude  of  its  oscillations  have 
continually  diminished  in  the  past  through  the  progress  of 
philosophical  discussion,  were  beliefs  with  which  his  studies  in 
philosophy  and  his  generous  hopefulness  inspired  him.  Men 
are  still  born  either  Platonists  or  Aristotelians;  but  by  their 
education  through  a  more  and  more  free  and  enlightened  dis¬ 
cussion,  and  by  progress  in  the  sciences,  they  are  restrained 
more  and  more  from  going  to  extremes  in  the  directions  of 
their  native  biases. 

In  Mill’s  Examination  of  Hamilton,  and  in  his  last  great 
work,  the  annotated  edition  of  his  father’s  “Analysis  of  the 
Phenomena  of  the  Human  Mind,”  many  valuable  subsidiary 
contributions  are  made  to  the  sciences  of  logic  and  psychology. 
But  in  all  his  writings  on  these  subjects  his  attention  was  di- 


JOHN  STUART  MILL. 


427 


rected  to  their  bearings  on  the  traditional  problems  and  discus¬ 
sions  of  general  philosophy.  The  modern  developments  of 
psychology,  as  a  branch  of  experimental  science,  and  in  con¬ 
nection  with  physiology,  deeply  interested  him;  but  they  did 
not  engage  him  in  their  pursuit,  although  they  promise  much 
towards  the  solution  of  unsettled  questions.  His  mental  pow¬ 
ers  were  trained  for  a  different  though  equally  important  service 
to  science, — the  service  of  clear  and  distinct  thought,  the  un¬ 
derstanding,  first  of  all,  of  that  for  which  closer  observation 
and  the  aid  of  experiment  are  needed;  the  precise  compre¬ 
hension  and  pertinent  putting  of  questions.  The  progress  of 
science  has  not  yet  outgrown  the  need  of  guidance  by  the  in¬ 
tellectual  arts  of  logic  and  method,  which  are  still  equal  in  im¬ 
portance  to  those  of  experiment.  The  imagination  of  the  sci¬ 
entific  inquisitor  of  nature,  the  fertility  of  his  invention,  his 
ability  to  frame  hypotheses  or  put  pertinent  questions,  though 
still  generally  dependent  on  his  good  sense,  and  his  practical 
training  in  experimental  science,  are  susceptible  still  of  further¬ 
ance  and  improvement  by  the  abstract  studies  of  logic  and 
method.  Open  questions  on  the  psychological  conditions  of 
vision  are  to  be  settled,  Mill  thought,  only  when  some  one  so 
unfortunate  as  to  be  born  blind  is  fortunate  enough  to  be  born 
a  philosopher. 

Mill  has  been  aptly  compared  to  Locke.  Their  philosophies 
were  fundamentally  the  same.  Both  were  “  philosophical  rad¬ 
icals  ”  and  political  reformers.  “  What  Locke  was  to  the  liberal 
movements  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Mr.  Mill  has  more  than 
been  to  the  liberal  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century.”  He 
was  born  on  the  20th  of  May,  1806,  and  died  on  the  8th  of 
May,  1873  having  nearly  reached  the  age  of  sixty-seven.  Pre¬ 
vious  to  the  brief  illness  from  which  he  died,  he  retained 
unimpaired  his  mental  vigor  and  industry;  and  though  it 
may  not  be  said  that  he  lived  to  see  the  hopes  of  his  youth 
fully  realized,  yet  his  efforts  have  met  with  a  degree  of 
success  in  later  years  which  he  did  not  anticipate.  His  fol¬ 
lowers  are  still  few  both  in  politics  and  in  philosophy.  So  far 
was  he  from  restoring  the  doctrines  of  his  school  as  the  domi¬ 
nant  philosophy  of  England,  that,  according  to  his  own  esti- 


428 


PHIL  OSOPHICA  L  DISCUSSIONS. 


mate,  “  we  may  still  count  in  England  twenty  a  priori  or  spir¬ 
itualist  philosophers  for  every  partisan  of  the  doctrine  of  Expe¬ 
rience.”  But  it  was  for  the  practical  applications  of  this  doc¬ 
trine  in  politics  and  in  morals,  rather  than  for  the  theoretical 
recognition  of  it  in  general,  that  he  most  earnestly  strove;  and 
we  should  probably  find  in  England  and  America  to-day  a 
much  larger  proportion,  among  those  holding  meditated  and 
deliberate  opinions  on  practical  matters,  who  are  in  these  the 
disciples  of  Mill,  than  can  be  found  among  the  students  of  ab¬ 
stract  philosophy. 


INDEX. 


Accident,  meaning  of,  in  science, 

131- 

Action  at  a  distance,  39 1. 

voluntary,  220. 

Age,  present,  sceptical,  267. 
Agency,  latent  mental,  21 1. 
Alchemists,  dreams  of,  32. 

Algse,  character  of  growth  of,  321. 
Animals,  do  they  reason  ?  207. 
rational,  206. 

Antecedent  and  consequent,  410. 

A  priori,  meaning  of  the  term,  373. 
Aristotle,  cosmological  doctrine 
of,  4. 

originator  of  syllogism,  360. 
Arrangement  of  leaves,  spiral  and 
whorl,  317-319- 

Articulation,  not  caused  by  selec¬ 
tion,  253. 

Assimilation,  phenomena  of,  41 1. 
Asteroids,  do  they  exist  in  space?  21. 
Atavism,  130. 

Bacon,  separated  physical  science 
from  scholastic  philosophy, 

375- 

his  distinguishing  service,  375. 
Belief,  disputes  about  the  nature  of, 
a  matter  for  lexicographers, 

249* 

three  metaphysical  forms  of, 
343- 

Biology,  physical,  135. 

Brain,  savage,  larger  than  is  neces¬ 
sary,  109. 
size  of,  hi. 

Categories  of  human  under¬ 
standing,  218. 

Causation,  law  of,  universality  of, 
9  note,  13 1. 
limits  of,  71. 

mathematical  conception  of, 
409- 

Cause,  how  related  to  its  effect,  245. 
result  of  the  discovery  of  a,  408. 


Cause,  in  science  does  not  imply  or 
suggest  its  effect,  408. 

Cause  and  effect,  essay  on,  406. 

Causes,  final,  how  the  doctrine  of 
is  supported  in  natural  sci- 
.  ence,  35. 

discussion  of  the  doctrine  of,  36, 

161. 

from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
hypothesis  of  natural  selec¬ 
tion,  101. 

Change,  unchangeable  laws  of,  74. 

Classes,  real  kinds,  183. 

Comets,  aphelia  of,  when  most 
numerous,  12. 
two  systems  of,  13. 

Comte,  on  verification,  45. 

not  the  founder  of  the  school 
of  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Bain, 
and  Darwin,  383. 

Concepts,  209. 

Conceptualists,  209. 

Consciousness,  origin  of,  115. 

Contradiction,  of  infinite  and  ab¬ 
solute,  355. 

Convictions,  as  used  by  Dr.  McCosh, 
331- 

Cosmology,  banished  from  scientific 
inquiry,  7. 

Counter-movements,  principle  of,  9. 

Cram,  ability  to,  thought  to  be  an 
element  of  success,  292. 

Cramming,  what  it  is,  287. 

Curiosity,  the  cause  of  culture,  51. 

Cycle,  a  group  of  leaves,  302. 
denoted  by  fractions,  302. 
leaves  of,  how  placed,  309. 

Darwin,  extraordinary  skill  of,  97. 
effect  of  his  work,  99. 
his  Descent  of  Man,  138,  397. 
his  Origin  of  Species,  126,  169. 
his  Hypothesis  of  Pangenesis, 
!35- 

most  consummate  speculative 
genius,  136. 


INDEX. 


43° 

Darwin,  his  views  concerning  nat¬ 
ural  selection,  138. 

Darwinism,  German,  398. 

Democritus,  why  called  an  atheist, 

176. 

Derivation,  127. 

Development,  127. 

Devotion,  uses  of,  248. 

Diagrams,  geometrical,  a  language, 

2  74- 

Differences,  original  cause,  diver¬ 
gences  of  race,  251. 

Dimorphism,  186-189. 

Discipline,  kind  of,  needed  in  uni¬ 
versities,  292. 

Distinction,  abstract  or  metaphys¬ 
ical,  363. 

when  valuable  in  classifica¬ 
tions,  370. 

Divergence,  angle  of,  how  meas¬ 
ured  in  plants,  302. 

Education,  a  science  of,  de¬ 
manded,  267. 

claims  of  university  writers  on 
the  subject,  268. 

experiments  in,  valuable  from 
their  failures,  274. 

tests  of  courses  proper  to  a 
general  education,  272. 

two  general  features  of  a  liberal 
education,  280. 

Effect,  how  related  to  its  cause,  245. 

Ego,  discussion  of  the,  228. 

Empiricists,  45. 

Equilibration,  Spencer’s  theory  of, 
80. 

Euclid,  good  results  of  the  study 
of,  270. 

Evolution,  according  to  Spencer, 

401. 

books  relating  to  the  theory 
of,  394. 

false  conception  conveyed  by 
the  term,  199. 

origin  and  value  of  the  law  of, 

69- 

prevalence  of  the  doctrine  not 
entirely  due  to  Darwinism, 
128. 

two  schools  of,  398. 

obstacles  to  acceptance  of  the 
theory  of,  6. 

reconciled  with  religious  dog¬ 
mas,  127. 

common  misconception  of,  251. 

Examinations,  university,  their  suc¬ 
cesses  and  failures,  271. 


Examinations,  abuses  of,  289. 

should  be  tests  of  memory  and 
invention  in  their  various 
orders,  290. 

Explanation,  limits  of,  247. 
two  meanings  of,  381. 

Force,  four  meanings  of,  in  dy¬ 
namical  science,  388. 
meaning  of,  when  unqualified, 
389. 

conservation  of,  79. 
not  a  necessary  law  of  the 
universe,  12 1. 
persistence  of,  78. 

Friction,  not  always  a  loss  of  force, 

27\ 

Frond,  spiral,  two  utilities  of,  322. 

Gei^mules,  165. 

cannot  be  divided,  166. 

Generalization,  exists  in  animals, 
226. 

Geology,  not  a  strictly  positive 
science,  15. 

‘“illogical,”  16. 

Geometry,  modern,  distinguished 
from  ancient,  280. 

Gesture,  language  of,  254. 

Glands,  mammary,  Mivart  on,  156. 

Gravitation,  potential  of,  19;  fee¬ 
bleness  of,  86. 

Gravity,  universality  of  the  law  of, 
discovered  by  Newton,  73. 

Gray,  Prof.,  his  theory  of  variation, 
161. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  38,  63, 

240.  7- Cl 

Heat,  what  becomes  of  it,  23. 
mechanical  theory  of,  87. 
the  sun’s  origin  of,  82. 
two  theories  of,  82. 

.  Herschel,  Sir  William,  nebular 
hypothesis  of,  1. 

History,  written  on  dramatic  prin¬ 
ciples,  71. 

Hypothesis,  derivative,  8-16. 
development,  16. 
nebular,  reason  for  its  cordial 
reception,  2 ;  discussion  of, 
3;  explains  facts  otherwise 
unaccounted  for,  4;  lacks 
antecedent  probability,  6 ;  its 
assumption  not  arbitrary,  10; 
criticized  in  detail,  1 1 ;  one 
of  its  successes,  13;  how 
regarded  by  physicists,  83. 


INDEX. 


4  31 


Hypotheses  in  science,  value  of 
discussion  of  rival,  169. 
mostly  trial-questions,  384. 
have  no  place  in  experimental 
philosophy,  136. 
verification  of,  45. 

Hypotheses  non  Jingo ,  of  Newton, 
48,  136. 

Idealism,  theory  of,  232. 

Idealists,  views  of,  with  regard  to 
the  natural  subject,  230. 

Ideas,  how  developed,  47. 
innate,  59. 

scientific  and  religious,  40. 

Images  as  signs,  209. 

Imagination,  highest  faculty  of,  in¬ 
volves  reason,  290. 
various  orders  of,  290. 
trained  by  mental  discipline, 
290. 

pure,  21 1. 

Induction,  as  used  by  Aristotle,  371. 
scientific,  work  of,  71. 

Inquiries,  ancient  and  modern,  48. 

Intelligence,  animal,  210. 

Internodes,  long,  disadvantage  in, 

.  .  3I4* 

Intuition,  232,  372. 

Dr.  McCosh  on,  330. 

Investigators,  modern  scientific, 
skill  of,  363. 

Knowledge,  founded  on  observa¬ 
tion,  43. 

Language,  artificial,  255. 
command  of,  256. 
traced  back  by  history,  264. 
traditions  of,  289. 
two  uses  of,  255. 

Laplace,  theory  of  origin  of  plan¬ 
ets,  2. 

Laws,  universal,  not  to  be  discov¬ 
ered  by  finite  intellects,  229. 

Leaf,  arrangements  of,  300. 
uses  of,  315. 

utilities  of  expansion  of,  321. 

Lewes,  George  Henry,  a  meta¬ 
physician,  368. 

his  Problems  of  Life  and 
Mind,  360. 

Light,  first  forms  of,  164. 
what  becomes  of  it,  23. 

Mansel,  Dr.,  reply  to  Mill,  350. 

Mass,  nebulous,  rotatory  motion 
of,  2. 


Masson,  David,  aim  of,  342. 

his  three  metaphysical  forms 
of  belief,  343. 

metaphysical  motives  of,  342. 
his  Recent  British  philosophy, 
342. 

scheme  of,  343. 

Mathematics,  273. 

dangers  of  the  display  of 
artistic  skill  in,  277. 
deficiency  of,  as  a  means  of 
discipline,  280. 

remedies  for  the  defects  in 
examination,  284. 
its  supposed  value  for  develop¬ 
ing  habits  of  accuracy  delu¬ 
sive,  279. 

Mayer,  Dr.,  theory  of  sun-heat,  82. 

McCosh,  Dr.,  follower  of  Bacon, 

378- 

mistakes  of,  383. 
on  intuitions,  330. 
treatment  of  his  opponents, 

377- 

on  Tyndall,  375. 
system  of,  330-333. 

Memory,  discussion  of,  288. 

in  the  more  intelligent  animals  ; 

in  man,  219. 
of  various  orders,  290. 
over- cultivated,  289. 
retentiveness  of,  288. 
lower  orders  of,  how  improved, 
294- 

Metaphysics,  demands  of,  246. 
methods  of,  366-400. 
term  often  discarded,  361. 
mystical,  how  met  by  scientific 
inquiries,  204. 

Metempirics,  366,  370. 

Meteors,  26. 

Method,  no  new  discoveries  in,  48. 
difference  between  ancient  and 
modern,  40. 

objective  and  subjective,  46. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  notice  of,  414. 
aim  of,  355. 
education  of,  419. 
essays  of,  on  liberty  and  sub¬ 
jection  of  women,  425. 
examination  of  Hamilton’s 
philosophy,  426. 
experience  in  government,  425. 
faith  of,  417. 

indifferent  to  a  reputation  for 
originality,  414. 
method  of,  418. 
compared  to  Locke,  427. 


INDEX. 


432 


Mill,  "John  Stuart,  political  economy 
of,  415-417- 

position  of,  in  politics,  423. 
reasons  for  the  anti- slavery 
views  of,  424. 

theory  of  population  of,  415* 
two  points  of  originality  of,  415. 

Mind,  human,  not  a  product  of  nat¬ 
ural  selection,  104. 

Minds,  eminent,  superiority  of,  due 
to  power  of  attention,  293. 

Mivart,  St.  George,  misconceptions 
of,  141,  147. 

on  the  genesis  of  species,  129. 
opposes  Darwin,  129. 

Modification,  descent  with,  168. 

Molecules,  distinction  in,  367. 
sizes  of,  166. 

Motive,  objective  and  subjective,  49. 

Motives,  non-utilitarian,  how  use¬ 
ful,  282. 

Mystery,  uses  of,  248. 

Mysticism,  nature  of,  203. 

still  prevails  in  mental  philos¬ 
ophy,  203. 

Names,  designations  of  things,  237. 
what  they  suggest,  212. 
abstract,  236. 

Nature,  highest  products  of,  not  the 
results  of  the  mere  forces  of 
inheritance,  159. 
knowledge  of,  how  obtained, 

47-. 

meaning  of,  in  science,  202. 

Nebulosity,  distribution  of,  I. 
two  grounds  for  belief  in,  5. 

Newton,  not  the  discoverer  of  the 
lazv  of  gravity,  but  of  its  uni- 
sality,  73. 

Nominalists,  209. 

Non  ego,  228. 

Noumena,  why  invented,  247. 

Ontology,  discussion  and  mean¬ 
ing  of,  344. 
often  discarded,  361. 

Organic  types,  theory  of,  297. 

Orion,  example  of  nebular  hypoth¬ 
esis,  I. 

Paley,  35. 

Pangenesis,  hypothesis  of,  1 35. 
why  invented,  164. 

Perception,  in  the  brain,  232. 

.  object  of,  233. 

Philosophers,  fundamental  division 

of,  343- 


Philosophy,  classed  with  religions 
and  the  fine  arts,  52. 
questions  of,  50. 
three  plans  of,  53. 
experimental,  13 1. 
natural,  constitution  of,  132. 
object  of,  16 1. 

Phyllotaxy,  300. 

problem  of,  303. 

Physiology,  general,  135. 

Planets,  causes  of  mean  distances 
of,  29. 

relation  of,  to  meteoric  system, 
27- 

Plants,  cyclic  character  of,  327. 
leaves  of,  296. 

Platonists,  45- 

Poets,  250. 

Polymorphism,  186,  189. 

Power,  definition  of,  18. 
manifestations  of,  19. 

Prevision,  power  of,  best  test  of  the 
truth  of  a  theory,  102. 

Ptolemy,  aim  of  his  research,  47. 

Question,  purpose  of,  247. 

Race,  human,  distinction  of,  254. 

Races,  savage,  why  they  remain  so, 
25a 

Radicals,  philosophical,  in  politics, 
423- 

Realism,  closely  allied  to  ti'an- 
scendentalism,  363. 

Realists,  natural,  appeal  to  common 
sense,  230. 

not  evolutionists,  231. 

Reality,  tests  of,  184. 

Repetition,  two  modes  of,  288. 

Reproduction,  phenomena  of,  illus¬ 
trations  of  cause  and  effect, 
410. 

Research,  modern  scientific,  supe¬ 
riority  of,  45. 

Reversion,  130. 

Saturn,  rings  of,  30. 

Science,  ancient  and  modern,  46. 
definition  of,  205. 
every  student  of,  a  positivist, 

3b3; 

experiments  in,  273. 
modern,  origin  of,  50. 
no  burdens  of  proof  in,  1 70. 
objective  value  of,  281. 
progress  of,  43. 

repudiates  scholastic  classifica¬ 
tions,  408. 


INDEX. 


433 


Science,  utilitarian  value  of,  2S2. 
Segmentation,  in  plants,  322. 
Selection,  natural,  an  economical 
process,  253. 

consistent  with  natural  the¬ 
ology,  100. 
evolution  by,  168. 
first  example  of,  149. 
insufficiency  of,  153. 
limits  of,  97. 

Mivart’s  views  of,  132. 
most  important  means  of  mod¬ 
ification,  1 71. 

not  concerned  in  the  first  pro¬ 
duction  of  any  form,  252. 
not  limited  to  origin  of  species, 

1 14. 

reception  of,  98. 
what  is  claimed  for  it,  19 1. 
its  value  as  a  working  hy¬ 
pothesis,  296. 
what  it  accounts  for,  182. 
sexual,  157. 

Self-consciousness,  evolution  of, 

199- 

theory  of,  251. 

Sensation,  seat  of,  233. 

how  determined,  234. 

Signs,  mental,  21 1. 

Similarity,  associations  of,  291. 
Sophia,  Aristotle’s  idea  of,  361. 
Species,  how  fixed,  182. 
genesis  of,  126. 

Mivart’s  proofs  of,  133. 
stability  of,  143. 

Speculations,  cosmical,  19. 

motives  of,  49. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  II. 

career  and  character  of,  56. 
doctrine  of  the  unknowable  of, 
91- 

“Descriptive  Geometry”  of, 
90. 

evolution,  theory  of,  67. 
inductions  of,  72. 
not  a  materialist,  75- 
not  a  positivist,  55. 
philosophy  of,  43. 

“Principles  of  Biology”  of,  68. 
“Principles  of  Psychology” 
of,  57- 

“Social  Statics”  of,  56,  67. 
test  of  truth  of,  58. 
incompetency  of,  96. 

Spiral,  meaning  of,  316. 

Sports,  athletic,  value  of,  for  men¬ 
tal  training,  278. 

Studies,  conflict  of,  267. 
disciplinary,  277. 


Study,  importance  of,  often  con¬ 
founded  with  examination- 
value,  273. 

modes  of,  involve  repetition, 
288. 

motives  to,  2S6. 

Structures,  adaptive,  297. 

genetic,  297. 

independent  similarities  of,  not 
accounted  for  by  theory  of 
natural  selection,  159. 

Substance,  conception  of,  235. 

Sun  spots,  cause  of,  31. 

Sun,  energies  of,  how  expended,  83. 

System,  solar,  constitution  of,  9. 

a  natural  product,  17. 


Teaching,  natural  genius  for, 
powerless  to  reproduce  it¬ 
self,  271. 

Teleology,  70. 

Theology,  natural,  as  positive  sci¬ 
ence,  33. 

teachings  of,  superstitious,  40. 

Theory,  physical,  of  the  universe,  1. 

Thinkers,  when  materialists,  407. 
rank  of,  how  determined,  361. 

Thought,  action  of,  210. 

Transmutation,  127. 

Truth,  condition  of  the  belief  in,  3. 

Tyndall,  Prof.,  on  heat  of  sun,  20. 
McCosh  on,  375. 

Types,  theory  of,  adapted  to  theory 
of  final  causes,  299. 
cause  of  prevalence  of,  299. 
opposition  of,  to  scientific  in¬ 
quiries,  299. 


Universities,  failures  and  duties 
of,  267. 

obligations  of,  283, 
reform  required,  286. 

Utility,  effect  of,  on  life  of  a  race, 


H3- . 

of  bodily  structures, 

158. 

of  knowledge,  282. 
Mill’s  view  of,  418. 


i5U  i53» 


Value,  Todhunter’s  standard  of, 
in  university  studies,  271. 

Values,  examination,  of  modern 
studies,  272. 

Variation,  as  a  phenomenon  of  or¬ 
ganization,  1S1. 
reversional,  132. 
unexplained  facts  of,  129. 

Veracity,  not  an  original  moral 
instinct,  113. 


434 


INDEX. 


Verification,  principle  of,  46. 
Volition,  misinterpretation  of,  233. 
an  action  through  memory,  264. 
conscious  phenomena  of,  122. 

Wallace,  A.  R.,  his  Contributions 
to  the  Theory  of  Natural 
Selection,  98. 

Weather,  cosmical,  10. 

Will,  the,  an  absolute  source  of 
physical  energy,  121. 


Will,  not  a  measurable  quantity  of 
energy,  but  an  incident  force, 

1 19. 

Words,  as  used  by  barbarians,  235. 
Wright,  Chauncey,  biographical 
sketch  of,  vii. 
attainments  of,  xxiii. 
genius  of,  xiii. 

in  what  sense  a  positivist,  xviii. 
writings  of,  xx. 

1 

Zeno,  paradox  of  motion  of,  385. 


f 


THE  END. 


y 


f? 


+ 


»♦ 


